Afghan war now longest in US history by Niki2

Obama and Bush should get a medal. The afghans had nothing to do with 9.11 and even if they did, it wouldn't matter. Obama has really ratcheted it up with talk of how these remote tribes represent the greatest threat to our security. Whatever. Thats like the whaling argument.

But vietnam could be counted from 1960, I suppose Afghanistan could be counter from 1989. And the russians had it before, just like the French in Vietnam. I guess it goes back to what I posted years ago, Iraq isn't Vietnam, afghanistan is.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 6:45 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Afghanistan is where they should have gone first, if they wanted to root out those who caused 9/11. The government shouldn't have been overthrown, but Al Qaeda should have bene pursued and eliminated. We were well on our way to doing just that, only Dumbya & Co. focused our resources on THEIR "little war" in Iraq, which they conned us into for their own purposes. Those are facts we all know...as well as all that happened subsequently and the dropping of the ball in Afghanistan. To try and pick it up again ten years later has proven futile. Continuing the way they have been is also futile.

Hell, the purpose and the way our government pursued BOTH wars was stupid and Iraq was a mistake in the first place. Our government has always been good at "stupid"

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 6:58 AM

Nikita

I'm not all convinced there is a connection between 9.11 and al qaeda, but I'm pretty sure that a war in Afghanistan does nothing but strengthen al Qaeda, esp. The part where we ousted the Taliban. But i also suspect that boosting al Qaeda was the goal.

Bush ignored it because there was no oil. He wanted to fight a war where there was oil. The bottom line is not that one war is right and the other wrong, it's that both wars are wrong.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 7:39 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

You're entitled to your opinion, I just disagree. I agree oil probably was the driving factor, but I think there was more to it, as well, like one-upping Daddy who failed to finish the job, and no doubt more. But most: oil, yes, I agree.

It's kind of a moot point about Al Qaeda, since they've pretty much moved on to Pakistan, Somalia, etc. It's more about the Taliban now, and "not losing". We may have come close to "ousting" the Taliban, but they're strong NOW.

What in heaven's name would American gain by boosting Al Qaeda? I don't see that one.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 9:29 AM

Nikita

Wouldn't you rather that our government produce conclusive evidence and then allow a jury of afghanistan's peers convict it before they execute the defendant?

Also, ousting the taliban isn't much of a goal, and its pretty profoundly not our business, and were doing it so well that they seem much stronger now than they were when we started. I mean, at the beginning, they barely had control of the country, now they're exporting taliban to neighbors.

Quote:
What in heaven's name would American gain by boosting Al Qaeda? I don't see that one.

Then keep looking ;)

It's just got no shortage of reasons. All the things you can do with an unaccountable terrorist group like attack the USSR or Iran, maybe assassinate a few domestic enemies, recruit some Muslims, lead them down a bad path, undermine their society, credibility, grow some opium, run a black market, some black ops, and of course: everyone needs an enemy, especially one that can never ever hurt you, but looks real scary. I mean he'll, it reelected a sub-literate moron to the whitehouse, enabling lots of bennies for people with have a brain, line Hank Paulson, who made him and his buddies a trillion and a half.

But, yes, we need the Taliban as a new enemy, because they also can never hurt us, and there's a bonus womens rights angle to being at war with them, which will appeal more to democrats than the terrorist druggie angle. It's good for your moral mission, especially if you maintain the illusion that tribal Pashtun represent the greatest threat to the worlds wealthiest nation. Don't matter if it don't make no sense, cause americans are perty dumb.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 9:36 AM

Oh, not one upping daddy. Bush w never made an executive decision in his life. This was cheneys doing. Daddy bush wouldn't invade Iraq, even with a beautiful set up like the first gulf war, which is why Cheney took his wulfie and peril and supported clinton. That was a box office smash of a move, only problem was, Clinton didn't have what it took to defeat Iraq, because slick willy liked to keep his wars on the down low, starve 'em out, feed in guns, let 'em kill each other. Reason that don't work against saddam is that he didn't care if his people got slaughtered. Well, considering clinton didn't want the media blitz of an actual blitz, wolfowitz, perle run my and Cheney move back to the GOP, got up the old kristol neocon crowd, created PNAC, and invented Bush 2.0. Get a monkey on a string dumb enough, he won't even think about what you tell him to do. 18% of the people who voted for bush said they did so because they thought he was his father - John zogby. (hey, what's in a name)

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 10:21 AM

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Correction: Iraq War has been nonstop since 1990.

That's 20 years so far. Clinton/Gore bombed Iraq every day for 8 years.

Darth Cheney says it will last 100 years...

Sith Obama has been bombing Iraq every day for 18 months.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 10:29 AM

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

Afghanistan is where they should have gone first, if they wanted to root out those who caused 9/11. The government shouldn't have been overthrown, but Al Qaeda should have bene pursued and eliminated. We were well on our way to doing just that, only Dumbya & Co. focused our resources on THEIR "little war" in Iraq, which they conned us into for their own purposes. Those are facts we all know...as well as all that happened subsequently and the dropping of the ball in Afghanistan.

You bitch are a goddamned Operative on the payroll of the Evil British Empire, with kosher Comrad Obamski.

Bush, Israel and Britian bombed USA on 9/11/2001 in a false flag attack, as confessed by Pentagon in Operation Northwoods, and everybody with a brain knows it.

Just like the jew Israeli bombing of USS Liberty in a false flag attack to blame the Arabs.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 10:34 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Oh, Jeez, PN, you're such a dick.

Anyway, DT, I didn't say he was ACTUALLY one-upping Daddy because Daddy did anything (or I didn't mean to anyway), I know both were Darth's war, but just think how easy it would be for Darth to convince Dumbya it WAS completing what Daddy started?

As to us backing Al Qaeda or the Taliban, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree, and let it go at that. There are some theories I don't buy, and that's one of them. I think one can find reasons to believe just about anything if one wants to, and it's not logical, to me.

Certainly the Taliban makes a good enemy to hate, our government's done that from virtually the very beginning. I don't, however, think too many are concerned with the womens' rights angle, it's not the same as fear of personal harm, and that's what the Taliban and Al Qaeda have come to symbolize.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 3:15 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Cause it provides that handy "external threat", complete with the ability to hold up that asshole Osama Been Forgotten (who's long dead, and everyone knows it) as some kind of modern day Emmanual Goldstein to keep up the booga-booga.

Only problem with it is, you can only cry wolf for so long, and the american people have divided into three camps over it, those who see through it, and are pissed about it, those who believe it, and are throwing a hissy cause we're not staging a new crusade to cleanse the world of infidels and heretics (which is kinda the same problem facing the OTHER guys, proving all politicians are essentially the same) and the last, and most dangerous group, the folks who know it's bullshit, but bang the drum and scream themselves cause they want an excuse to do evil with official sanction.

Watching the political extremes march further and further apart, I am pointedly reminded of the 10 paces of a pair of duelists, and I wonder if that's actually gonna happen here - it's not like many of these folks can be reasoned with, sadly.

-Frem

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 4:48 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Afghanistan is where they should have gone first, if they wanted to root out those who caused 9/11.

It was. The U.S. went in over a full year before heading into Iraq, for nothing to do w/ 9/11.

" Being correct does not excuse a violation of form " - Ducky, NCIS.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 5:00 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
The U.S. went in over a full year before heading into Iraq, for nothing to do w/ 9/11.

Why then, oh Professor of history? To get back our weapons?

The laughing Chrisisall

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 5:07 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

Certainly the Taliban makes a good enemy to hate

I hate them. You hate them.
We all scream for ice cream!

We *REALLY* need to sit Obama down in front of a big TV & show him Serenity at this point.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 5:22 PM

BYTEMITE

Wait wait wait! Jeez Chris, don't snark yet. AURaptor just said that he doesn't think 9-11 had anything to do with going into Iraq. I'd like to hear more.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 5:29 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
AURaptor just said that he doesn't think 9-11 had anything to do with going into Iraq. I'd like to hear more.

No you don't.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 5:50 PM

Frem,

Osama is emannuel goldstein, as he has been, but if so, he's not there to recruit the american people, but you knew that already. I agree he's no longer among the quick. It comes back to us not really wanting to win. As for the other side, I think at the moment, they're all gaming tomb someones allies, mostly ours, through one branch or another of our hopelessly disorganized madhouse, so they can get free weapons, cash, and have us look away while they run their little side business.

Nikita

It would be possible for a trained monkey to convince Bush that he should invade new Mexico. This is a man who fed a live wire into a cars fuel tank, and who thinks that you use a hammer by the head.

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010 4:49 AM

BYTEMITE

I live for disappointment.

Quote:
This is a man who fed a live wire into a cars fuel tank

Really?

There goes my argument for holding him as accountable as the rest of them.

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:42 AM

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Fox News Makes Excuse for CIA’s Afghan Opium Cultivation

In an amazing propaganda segment, Fox News’ Gerald Rivera talks with an occupation soldier about U.S. support of the opium trade in Afghanistan. The soldier tells Rivera he does not like supporting Afghan opium production. The U.S., he insists, has turned a blind eye to the cultivation because it is a cultural thing. He’d rather the Afghans grow watermelons.

Is it possible the U.S. will tell the brother of Afghanistan’s U.S.-installed ruler he should get in the watermelon business?

It was reported a few months ago that Ahmed Wali Karzai was on the CIA payroll and intimately involved in the opium trade Fox News and the rest of the corporate media tell us is run by the evil Taliban.

Fox News did not report that before everything changed on September 11, 2001, and before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban had imposed a ban on opium production. This resulted in opium production collapsing by more than 90 per cent. It was the U.S. supported Northern Alliance that came to the rescue and began protecting the production of raw opium.

“CIA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [who in 2001 were part of the Northern Alliance] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society,” William Blum writes in The Real Drug Lords.

Under the interim government of Hamid Karzai, opium poppy cultivation once again began to skyrocket and opium markets were restored.

According to the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP), opium cultivation increased by 657 per cent in 2002 in relation to its 2001 level. The UNDCP estimated 2002 opium poppy cultivation would cover an area between 45,000 and 65,000 hectares. Opium cultivation in 2001 had fallen to an estimated 7,606 hectares. According to the UN, in 2006 alone Afghanistan supplied 92 percent of the world’s supply of opium (see Apratim Mukarji’s Afghanistan: From Freedom to Terror, p. 22-23).

“The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liaison with NATO occupation forces and the British military. In recent developments, British occupation forces have promoted opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements,” Michel Chossudovsky wrote in 2007.

“Respected people of Helmand. The soldiers of ISAF and ANA do not destroy poppy fields,” the radio promo said. “They know that many people of Afghanistan have no choice but to grow poppy. ISAF and the ANA do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods.” This is basically the same excuse used by the soldier interviewed by Geraldo.

James Risen writes in State of War. “In fact, the White House and Pentagon went out of their way to avoid taking on the Afghan drug lords from the very outset of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.”

Not mentioned is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenue generated by opium production is siphoned off to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions.

“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” said Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said last January. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”

Former Managing Director and board member of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read, Catherine Austin Fitts, has long alleged that the banksters launder imponderable amounts of drug money. “According to the Department of Justice, the US launders between $500 billion – $1 trillion annually. I have little idea what percentage of that is narco dollars, but it is probably safe to assume that at least $100-200 billion relates to US drug import-exports and retail trade,” writes Fitts.

The CIA has long secured the lucrative global drug market for Wall Street and for its own operational “off-the-books” purposes. “The CIA’s operational directorate, in other words that’s their covert operations, para-military, dirty tricks — call it whatever you want — has for at least 40 years that we can document paid for a significant amount of its work through the sales of heroin and cocaine,” Guerrilla News Network reported in an interview with Christopher Simpson.

The CIA has been in the drug running business since the 1950s. In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Latin America, and Afghanistan, the CIA — also known as the “Cocaine Import Agency” — has remained at the forefront of the international illicit drug trade.

The journalist Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News tied the CIA and the Contras to a large crack cocaine ring in Los Angeles. Webb paid with his life for revealing this information to the public.
None of this was mentioned by Geraldo Rivera and Fox News. Instead we are told drug dealing in Afghanistan is something engaged in by the evil Taliban (a group of religious fanatics created by the CIA and its partner, Pakistin’s ISI intelligence service).

http://www.infowars.com/fox-news-makes-excuse-for-cias-afghan-opium-cu
ltivation/

Quote:

The best film winner at the 2008 edition of the Rome Film Festival was Siddiq Barmak’s drama Opium War. Following a helicopter crash, two American soldiers are stranded in Afghanistan. After some relaxing moments — with the help of that substance found in poppies — they encounter an Afghan family living inside a tank.

trailer: www.imdb.com/name/nm1383995/

http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/rome-film-festival-awards-2008/

http://current.com/entertainment/movies/85228301_chat-with-afghan-dire
ctor-siddiq-barmak-about-his-new-film.htm

"Shit's gettin way too complicated for me. There are white folks, and then there are ignorant mutherfuckers like you! You can put lipstick on a pig. Sorry ass mutherfucker's got nuttin on me. I inhaled frequently - that was the point. Pot helped, and booze. A little blow when you could afford it. Junkie, pothead. That's where I'd been headed. You ain't my bitch nigger, git your own damn fries!"
-Barack Hussien Obama Soetoro, Dreams From My Father, MP3:
http://www.archive.org/details/ObamaInauguralMashup/

British citizen Hussein Obama Soetoro Black Knight of the British Empire

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:46 AM

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

US soldiers smoke heroin in Aghan Opium War
http://aminwahidi.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-happened-to-opium-war.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_War_(2008_film)

Trailer OSAMA by same director of OPIUM WAR:

http://www.alltrailers.net/osama.html

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010 10:02 AM