We have now reached the 2000 mark in our dead military personnel in Afghanistan. I have spoken to journalists who are friends and recently returned from Afghanistan. They describe a situation getting progressively worse in the country and military contacts privately stating that they have given up any notion of “winning” the war. Yet, the Obama Administration continues to pour billions into the country and we continue to lose Americans in this senseless civil war as well as Iraq (that passes this mark seven years ago).
What is most alarming are reports that I have heard from people over there that the military intends to keep thousands of troops in the country after the deadline and that the promise of a complete withdrawal is just for the public. In the meantime, we are sacrificing our soldiers and our badly needed funds because politicians do not want to be blamed for a withdrawal.
What is even more alarming is the relative lack of notice taken to reaching this dire milestone in the media.
Source: CBS
I cannot help believing there is more than MIC money involved. Andy
Well, just like the Mafia, there may be a threat of loss of life for pols who do not bow before the mighty MIC.
Yea, Dredd, these oil wars are a complete waste of money.
Because the nation that gets off of the oil addiction treadmill first with the best technology will be the next global superpower. No doubt in my mind about that.
apparently using the F’in-himmer gets you into moderation. sorry about that but a cluster fcuk I said and a cluster fcuk it is
Gene H. 1, June 22, 2012 at 11:47 am
You can’t stop the wars. That’d screw up or economy even more on top of the thievery and gambling of Wall Street if we couldn’t sell weapons to ourselves. I mean, it’s not like we could better spend that money on infrastructure and social services and job creation or anything meaningful that is both pragmatic and non-violent at the same time. That would be un-Merikin.
=============================
Quite stark, and a true statement of the understanding of too many.
A very recent report inspired by the Department of Energy indicates that if we were to focus on our national energy grid we could, with existing technology, easily produce 80% of electrical energy with renewable resources by 2050:
(National Renewable Energy Laboratory). These oil wars are a waste of our future, but a smart national power grid would help insure our future.
Andy 1, June 22, 2012 at 11:19 am
I cannot help believing there is more than MIC money involved. Do the “grey men in the tall towers” (Oliver’s Travels) have other interests such as protection of energy reserves/transportation in the region?
========================================
Well said.
“MIC” is so yesterday’s dictionary.
Jason 1, June 22, 2012 at 11:15 am
We can lead the world, or we can enslave it (and ourselves at the same time), Only Ron Paul has the guts to pull our men and our money out of this entanglement.
====================================
Ron Paul (R-TX) doesn’t even have the power to cut his way out of the republican primary thicket, much less take on more powerful forces that have kept us in Afghanistan for a lunatic amount of time.
It is not the problem of any one individual anymore, it is systemic.
You don’t stop a national epidemic by vaccinating the king.
The US misleadership has one and only one response to every situation–violence. We need to ask why that is. If any of their many wars were actually about helping the oppressed then two things would be true. 1. we would uniformly treat oppression as something to be addressed by the US. Clearly the “leadership” does not do this. (G. Greenwald’s column speaks to the amazing level of hypocrisy concerning this.) 2. we would have other tools in the tool box besides violence.
The war against the people of Afghanistan was never just, it wasn’t never justified. Now so many people’s lives have been ruined, our peoples, their people’s. Who has benefited? Look into that question and you’ll understand right away this war isn’t about justice, helping the oppressed or anything of the kind. It is about power, access to resources and gobs of money for a few. On that score, it has been more “successful” than hoped for.
Violence is worshiped in this society and we need to stop that. Obama does get higher approval ratings when he presents his killer creds–not just with red meat conservatives but with the kind, gentle Quaker-Unitarian-spectrum of wonderful, “thinking”, sophisticated lefties. We need to wonder why that is so because it says something very profound about this culture.
Chicago more dangerous than Afghanistan?
Barely six months into 2012, Chicago has already hosted 228 homicides this year; overseas in Afghanistan, the body count for US troops has reached a comparably meager 144. Matched up against other major cities, Chicago’s murder rate exceeds four-times what residents of New York have experienced this year, reports The Daily. What’s worse, however, is that death toll isn’t expected to teeter off anytime soon.
http://rt.com/usa/news/chicago-afghanistan-city-us-108/
BK,
The issue that has been stated is only US soldiers……. It does not include contractors, NATIONAL or other Countries military personnel….. Nor does the casualties include the civilians of other countries…… It may occasionally count their soldiers……
And…”At an international conference today in Geneva, Switzerland, international law and human rights experts told of the dire Human Rights implications of the US Targeted Killing Program.
Photograph: Getty Images The conference, put together by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other rights groups, heard from members of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, among others, who warned that the ever expanding use of drone strikes threaten 50 years of international law.
Christof Heyns, of the UN Special Rapporteur told that President Obama’s attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, are encouraging other states to also neglect Human Rights standards that have existed since World War II.
At the conference, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Zamir Akram, called for international legal action to halt the “totally counterproductive attacks” by the US in his country, the Guardian/UK reports.
Heyns went so far as to claim that such actions may constitute international war crimes.
Heyns countered the suggestion in Washington that drone strikes, on targets assumed to be linked to al-Qaida, are a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks. “It’s difficult to see how any killings carried out in 2012 can be justified as in response to [events] in 2001. Some states seem to want to invent new laws to justify new practices,” he stated.
Heyns went on to to add that the time has come to end the “conspiracy of silence” over drone attacks and “shine the light of independent investigation” by the UN and other agencies.
Leading up to today’s conference, ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi stated, “The United States has cobbled together its own legal framework for targeted killing, with standards that are far less stringent than the law allows. Senior U.S. government officials have claimed self-defense and law of war authority to target and kill suspected terrorists in states with which and in which the United States is not at war, based on largely secret legal criteria, entirely secret evidence, and a secret process.”
Late last night, the Obama administration rejected requests by the ACLU and the New York Times for documents relating to the US military’s drone and targeted killing campaigns.” find at Common Dreams
You can’t stop the wars. That’d screw up or economy even more on top of the thievery and gambling of Wall Street if we couldn’t sell weapons to ourselves. I mean, it’s not like we could better spend that money on infrastructure and social services and job creation or anything meaningful that is both pragmatic and non-violent at the same time. That would be un-Merikin.
Obama has done exactly what he promised to do. I think he finessed the pulling out of Iraq ’cause we’re really still there.
I suspect the real number of US casualties is much greater than 2000 when you consider the number of suicides, etc. that are a result of service members being there.
And, yes, continued presence is for the Caspian Sea pipeline, the real reason for going in in the first place. The MIC and the drugs are just icing on the cake.
We the people (sheep) are victims of our own Government and it’s been that way since the ink dried on the constitution .It’s been that way in all countries since time began.Real freedom is non existing except for a lone person on a desolate island. As soon as any type of government is formed the strong minded people take control of the people with a military backing up their arbitrary laws.
Afghanistan – The Graveyard of Empires.
That moniker has always stuck out in my mind. Any surprise of where our economics are at after more than 10 years of War? Everyone wants to credit Reagan for winning the Cold War, but he couldn’t have done it without the Soviets bogged down in Afghani-land.
Personally, I think the US would be far better off like some of the European countries who have required military training for all citizens, so that if we absolutely need to we can defend ourselves or launch an attack if need be. When we all face the threat of going, we’ll have a lot less war/chicken hawks out there.
The ‘turn the desert to sand’ redneck chicken hawks might rethink their views if they actually had to go.
BarkinDog, not to pick a fight, but Obama owns this one. He either doesn’t know how cut his losses, or doesn’t want to. Typical pols, scaling the politics behind the military cover excuse. Or buying the military excuse and covering with politics. Which is worse?
Obama could have finessed this war, blamed it’s excesses on the prior administration, and wound it down. But he rejected that path, or any reasonable semblance, as soon as he got elected. What makes this war any different than the debacle of Vietnam? Primarily the “war on terror” excuse to do anything, even at the cost in lives and treasure. But in Vietnam the underlying excuse was “communism”/dominos. Excuses for unnecessary military actions that take on momentum and a life of their own subject to political machinations and militarist machinations.
Their is no plausible explanation that passes the smell test. AY said MIC; that about sums it up. Sadly this debacle is down the list in most peoples priorities. Anti-war, peace movement. Forget it. So 20th century. We tried.
I cannot help believing there is more than MIC money involved. Do the “grey men in the tall towers” (Oliver’s Travels) have other interests such as protection of energy reserves/transportation in the region?
We can lead the world, or we can enslave it (and ourselves at the same time), Only Ron Paul has the guts to pull our men and our money out of this entanglement.
Well, what do you expect from the MIC……..
There you go again. Blame Obama for Bushie’s war. Willard wants to finance another 100,000 troops, more naval vessels, more planes. Do you think he is sending them to Watts? Willard, Willard, bo billard, bananna fanna fo millard, Willard. If the first two letters are ever the same, you drop them both and say the name, like…
Thought I would put the name game jingle in there to stir you Willard people up.
Barrrrk, groowwwlll. (expletive wont pass Turley sensible censor)
Reblogged this on NonviolentConflict.
Guess why congress will not cut off funds for this lunatic war? The answer is that the warmongering bully corporations that run the show would go postal on them.