Because, that is what we’re talking about.

Bush couldn’t do it, but he was sure enough trying it.

I don’t think Obama can do it either, but the conservatives who engineered this fuckup will be delighted for him to try it, since it will, irrevocably, put a stamp of “Property of Barak Obama and the Democratic Party” on the misery.
Jacking up our committment of money and bodies MAY achieve some kind of bloody stalemate, but the other achievement, of having a lot of people who voted for the democrats last November, asking: “WTF???”, will be of more moment, since, in the highest of ironies, it will likely return control of the government to the very people who created this grotesque piece of foreign policy.

We have no reasonable mission in that region, unless its control of the natural resources and the land over which they will travel to get to us.

If that’s what we’re about then we’ll have to suppress the locals with a war, and set up bases to protect “our interests.”

Come on Obama and DOD say it. Speak the truth.

Careful what you ask for… Pepe Escobar on pipelineistan

I want to reinterpret his grim honest assessment as a need to get out in a hurry. Whether or not this is am exasperating, his message was definitely no pep talk.

Interpreting General Chrystar this way makes more sense than claiming the war is for no purpose, or even stupid,

RICHARDKANEpa.blogspot.com
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/10214

There’s a long sad history of colonization that’s made Afghanistan what it is today: imagined borders that only serve money-laundering-leaders, 90% illiterate, no roads to move agricultural products (besides heroin!), no industrial development, or infrastructure for just clean water. No access to the sea, thanks to the Brits. Check out Invisible History of Afghanistan on the C-SPAN Book TV, video here http://bit.ly/NahpZ

If colonialism were ever part of the dialogue, we’d have to admit we owe and the Brits owe, big-time. Both of us used them like toilet paper, made their lives worse by every conceivable measure, as if they were mere troublesome insects on our path to self-enrichment/aggrandizement.

Even CodePink – no sold-out-lefty-slouches – went to Afghanistan’s women hoping for support for a U.S. pullout, and were stunned to hear the women want us there for protection. We armed the Taliban’s war lords, they pay for it.

So, sure, pull out, but not until we do just as we need to do here: create the system to provide meaningful green jobs, for men and women, that pay a living wage. A lot smaller investment would do 1000X as much there as here, and maybe we’d (more of us) would sit up and say: Let’s do it here, for ourselves, now.

And the Brits had best put in half the funds and people-power to get it done. They cut Afghanistan off from the Arabian Sea and created that fake worthless border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the first place.

This ain’t no Dupars, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around”

Talking Heads – Life During Wartime