Afghanistan: The Little Brown Poor People Have Already Won May 29, 2012

Did you ever take a close look at pictures of American soldiers trekking around Afghanistan? You’ll see guys humping fifty to a hundred pounds of gear.

And the ‘enemy’? Guys in Afghan street clothes carrying AKs.

Guess who won the war? Yup, the little guys with the funny hats and scruffy beards.

But, you say, it’s not over yet. How could they have won?

You might also ask yourself who the Americans are fighting. Al Qaeda? Pretty much gone ten years ago. The Taliban? Apparently, but they’re fighting a civil war, or will as soon as the Americans get out of the way. And then there’s the ‘suspected insurgents’ and the ‘suspected militants’. It’s never ‘insurgents’ or ‘militants’. And a good many of them are, didja notice, somewhere between the ages of just born to, oh, say, ten years old.

Of course the point for the Afghanis is that they are fighting on their home turf. They live there. They have a long history there. Long and bloody, but it’s their history and their land.

And really, the Americans, their supply line goes halfway around the world. And their lines of reasoning come straight from the rabbit hole. Ripping Afghanistan apart so that ‘terrorists can never use Afghanistan as a launching pad for attacks on the United States again.’ The Americans seem to have forgotten the attacks of 9/11 were launched from major American airports using American airplanes and the criminals were trained in American flight schools. Al Qaeda, or whoever, and it is increasingly obvious that the Americans are fighting whoever, doesn’t need Afghanistan. Or any particular country or place. A dining room table in Peoria, Illinois will serve just fine as a planning venue.

So not only do the Americans not know who they’re fighting, or why, but they’re being beaten. Ten years and Afghanistan just sinks deeper into corruption and violence. But that’s not the win.

The win for the ‘enemy’ is that the United States has spent well over a half a trillion dollars to date, and is on the hook for probably another trillion or more just to provide for the soldiers damaged in the fight. Add in another couple of trillion for the Iraq war.

So the United States is several trillion dollars in the hole, and counting, based on the whims and ignorance of a narcissistic, egotistical adolescent President named Bush and his amoral sidekick Cheney. And a smart guy, or maybe not so smart guy, named Obama continues to throw money into the snakepits of Afghanistan and corporate war profiteers in the United States.

And just how does that count for a win for the little brown guys with the AKs?

Because all the money could have gone to making the United States a stronger, safer country instead of a weak, mewling giant. It could have gone to building a first class education system instead of the existing failing system that’s being undermined by the ignorant fanatics the conservative movement has unleashed in America. That money could have gone to improving infrastructure, to building first class rail systems and urban transit systems. That money could have gone into massive investments in research and development and implementation of energy systems that could free the country from dependence on the oil and coal that are killing the world. That money could have gone to produce a first class healthcare system instead of a third rate insurance system that enriches CEOs at the cost of the lives and health of citizens.

But we have none of those things. Nor will we in the foreseeable future. Our Dear Leaders have decided it is better to fight a war and kill innocent foreign children than it is to risk the wrath of the conservatives, the know-nothings, the ignorant, the religious fanatics, and the rest of the blind ideologues who shout and stomp their feet and then vote for the candidates who appeal to their basest instincts.

The United States was once the place where people the world over aspired to go. It was thought to be the land of freedom and civility. Now, to aspire to become an American is to aspire to sink into a moral sewer.

So, yes, al Qaeda, or whoever, has won. The United States allowed al Qaeda, or whoever, to allow the United States to cut its own throat. And a fine job of it the United States has done.

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Petraeus Delusional, Proving Bush Has Contagious Mental Illness August 16, 2007

The latest Bushian Hero, General David Petraeus, soon to be a general scapegoat, has caught the mental disease causing Bush’s delusions.

In today’s Globe Steven R. Hurst writes:

…Petraeus cautioned against a quick or significant US withdrawal that could surrender “the gains we have fought so hard to achieve.”

Do those ‘gains’ include the five hundred dead Iraqis in northwestern Iraq yesterday?

And what gains precisely is he talking about? US troops have quieted a few acres in Baghdad while Iraqi fighters have simply moved elsewhere and continued blowing holes in people and Bush’s rosy scenarios.

You can’t have gains if you aren’t going to stay there forever, because the minute you do the smart thing and get the hell out of the way of what the Iraqis want, the Iraqis will flow right back in and do what they want. So, gains?

And here’s a humorous comment from the General:

The general, who wrote the Army’s book on counterinsurgency, said he and his staff were “trying to do the battlefield geometry right now” as he prepared his troop-level recommendations.

Here’s the geometry, General. Your boss followed a straight line right into a point in Hell when he invaded Iraq.

And if you don’t include in your precious geometry the fact that most of the Iraqis want your ass angled right the hell out of their country, then your geometry is going to turn in a mess of chaotic quantum foam.

He goes on to talk about having a smaller ‘footprint’ by next year, and then:

“We have made some progress but again there’s still a lot of hard work to be done against the different extremist elements that do threaten the new Iraq.”

The new Iraq?

You mean the old Iraq minus the hundreds of thousands of dead people for which the United States is responsible? The old Iraq minus the electricity and the fresh water that the United States is responsible for destroying? The old Iraq minus the two million professionals and others who have fled the violence for which the United States is responsible?

That Iraq is your ‘new Iraq’?

And the extremist elements, General? You haven’t shown you can tell one Iraqi from another, much less who is an extremist or what any of them are fighting for.

And the General is just oh-so-pleased with himself for arming Sunnis, formerly anti-US fighters, to fight so-called al Qaeda.

“You have to pinch yourself a little to make sure that is real because that is a very significant development in this kind of operation in counterinsurgency.”

Pinch, pinch, pinch. Oooooooo!

Naturally it’s only a matter of time before those folks will turn those shiny new US weapons on US troops again, because to them, the United States is only somewhat less bad for Iraq than al Qaeda.

Bang, bang, bang. Oooooh crap, I’m shot!

And if Bush carries out his wet dream of attacking Iran, or any element of Iran, the General can expect to have one of those guns shoved up his butt and the trigger pulled by an all-too-willing Iraqi real soon thereafter.

It’s not geometry, General. It’s more like a mess of pick-up sticks over there, and your fumble-fingered, drug-addled, mental nutcase of a boss is the one screwing with the sticks.

You’re living the delusion, General. Enjoy it while you can.

Pakistan And al Qaeda: More Bush Stupidity And Arrogance July 19, 2007

Interesting post over at Qu’ran-Bible on the mess Bush and his friends are about to make in Pakistan.

Apparently the less respect and more ridicule he gets at home the more he wants to screw over the rest of the world. Which of course means that what he does over there will come back to haunt us for years – right now we’re into decades of haunting because of what the Psychopath in Chief has done.

Homeland, Schomeland! July 18, 2007

What is this nonsense about ‘the homeland’? As in al Qaeda may attack the homeland.

Nazis had a homeland. Fascists in Italy had a homeland. Russians under czars and communists had a homeland, or a motherland, or was it fatherland?

The whole homeland meme is more bullcrap created by the moral and ethical failures who inhabit the White House and the Republican Party, including the brain-dead, pathetic Texas killer and his boss, Cheney, the wannabe Stalin of America.

People in homelands march in lockstep to the orders of psychotic dictators.

This is America. The United States of America, and the United comes from calling a dictator a dictator, from telling the mentally jackbooted marchers and their cheap, smelly patriotism to go to hell, and to take their propagandists in the press with them. And making it stick.

The sooner we throw these Congressional suck-up Republicans and Bush and Cheney and their sycophants back into the gutters they came from, the sooner we can dump this homeland nonsense and get back to being the United States of America.

Was Al Qaeda Stronger Then, Or Is It Stronger Now? Bush Needs To Know July 13, 2007

A reader over at TPM offered the following comment on Bush’s press conference:

Bush spent the whole press conference say we are fighting Al Qaeda, then concluded by disagreeing that Al Qaeda is stronger than it was in 2001. In 2001, they highjacked four airliners using box cutters and today, according to administration spin, they have the entire United States Army bogged down! How do people sit there and not start laughing, I don’t know.

Good point.

Nothing else works. Maybe if we laugh at these fools every time they open their mouths we can get rid of them.

Chris Matthews: Al Qaeda in South America July 9, 2007

Just a few minutes ago one of the worst interviewers on television news, Chris Matthews, on his ‘Hardball’ show, stated “Al Qaeda is all over South America.”

No attribution.

No facts.

No evidence.

No context. He was talking about the war in Iraq with Senator Webb.

No follow-up.

Just Motor Mouth Matthews either being really stupid, or attempting to fan flames. Or sending up a Republican trial balloon.

Ali Get Your Gun! July 9, 2007

Robert H. Reid of the AP reports today that top political leaders from both sides, Sunni and Shia, are telling civilians to arm themselves. Even the vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, said, “the people have no choice but to take up their own defense.”

Yeah, baby! So much for the surge.

How bad is it? Two car bombs blew in the Shi’ite Karradah district.

The Karradah area includes the offices of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the biggest Shi’ite party in Parliament, and is considered among the safest parts of the capital.

There’s also a move afoot to call a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which would bring down the government.

So, let’s see, the government comes down, and the citizens are arming themselves. There’s a civil war going on. And pretty much everybody wants the American invaders out of their country. And Bush is running around like a brain-dead chicken screaming “Al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda!” because that’s the only thing the stupid bastard knows how to do.

An accompanying piece by Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post notes:

The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in US policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter.

As they prepare an interim report due by July 15, officials are marshalling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.

A couple of things about this. This is typical Republican, typical Bush tactics. The Iraqis can’t meet the goal, so let’s change the goal and make up something so we can stay there and kill more people. It’s called bait and switch. It’s called fraud. As Ms. DeYoung puts it:

Now, as US combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad, and sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards.

And consider also that the Iraqis, invaded and occupied illegally and unjustly by the United States, really don’t have to meet any goals that the sociopaths in the White House set for them. The Iraqis are far more connected to the reality of their situation than Bush will ever be. (Raising the question of whether Bush is connected to any reality at all, other than the delusions his coke- and booze-addled brain creates for him.)

The only standards that will matter, the only standards that will stick, are the ones the Iraqis set for themselves and achieve for themselves, by themselves.

And those guns that the government is telling the citizenry to start using – what do you want to bet that before too long they’ll be turned on every American in sight over there? You betcha, baby. You suck-ups in the Pentagon better ramp up production of body bags. You’re going to need as many as you can get some American company to rip you off for them.

Car Bombs In London! Wow! Who Woulda Thunk It? June 30, 2007

Anyone who’s surprised by the car bombs found in London really needs to have their sense of reality examined by a competent professional.

Paisley Dodds of the Associated Press writes today:

Professor Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University, said a number of factors would have come together to prompt the thwarted attacks.

“With the change in prime minister this could be the work of Al Qaeda,” he said. “They have a track record of trying to influence political change through violent means such as in the Madrid train attacks.”

A couple of notes on that. The change in Prime Ministers had already taken place. And these people were most likely not really al Qaeda. Hell, they couldn’t even put together a working car bomb. I doubt that al Qaeda training has fallen off that badly. We’ll probably find these were local wannabes who couldn’t figure out how to do a good bomb. Which is most fortunate.

Then there’s this:

US authorities said there was no specific terror threat to the United States, and the national alert level, currently at yellow (elevated) was not raised.

Well of course it wasn’t raised. There’s no election scheduled this time of year.

Next year, though, wow oh wow! If someone sets off a firecracker in August, the Republicans will put that terror color thingie right up through the frigging roof. They’ll be shouting “Nine eleven! Nine eleven! Vote Republican. Democrats are weak-kneed traitors! Nine eleven! Nine eleven!”

The pathetically funny thing is that al Qaeda, the real al Qaeda, would love to pull off a big one next year in order to keep the Republicans in office. Bin Laden & Company know that their best friend and biggest supporter is George W. Bush and his neocon sociopaths. He’s carried their water since 2001 and if another Republican gets into office, that one will carry their water too. Republicans are the best recruiters and trainers that al Qaeda has.

Insurgents Morph Like Smurfs June 25, 2007

How come lately the only people American troops are fighting in Iraq are al Qaeda?

Al Qaeda by any measure comprise only a small percentage of the people fighting against us there. The last figure I saw put the number at about five percent.

But the way the press reads lately the insurgents have all gone away and been replaced by al Qaeda. Everyone American troops slaughter is now an al Qaeda. Everyone who slaughters American troops is now an al Qaeda.

Wow! Is this the turnaround Bush and Petraeus promised us? A public relations gimmick that will make the war suddenly acceptable? Gee, these guys are really clever, especially when much of the press is still in their pocket.

Which brings us to the question of the year – Do mainstream reporters actually have functioning brains? The evidence would appear to fall on the side of the cabbage theory, which states that their brains were replaced at birth with cabbages rejected by farmers.

If you could find a mainstream reporter who would travel through Iraq without a military unit and a couple of helicopters to protect him (and yes, there are a few, even a couple of good ones) I suspect said reporter would be hard-pressed to find an al Qaeda operative. Most offer as proof of al Qaeda a commemorative ashtray with an AQ monogram given to them as a gift by the commanders of the units in which they’re embedded. And their reporting reflects that.