Michael Moore on Afghanistan: “Get Out and Apologize”
Michael Moore has a suggestion for U.S. policy in Afghanistan: “Get out and apologize!”
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44 Responses to “Michael Moore on Afghanistan: “Get Out and Apologize””
Interesting side note. Harold Koh is the new John Yoo, who is the legal mind providing Obama classified legal justification for using drones which collaterally hit innocent civilians.
Why would a legal justification need to be kept secret? Seems like we are not getting change…but an exchange…Yoo for Koh.
Many like-minded Americans think the same way, Mr. Moore, and have since 2001. Thank you for your pleas. It is ludicrous that American infrastructure is crumbling, people are starving and dying, and yet, both Congress and the President, who I generally admire, are throwing away so much of our money for something that will not now, nor ever, help America or Americans. Recent proposed budget cuts to Department of the Interior agencies that will severely limit their operations amounted to somewhere around 2 hours of what the War in Afghanistan costs. This is so wrong when our needs at home are so many. Again, many thanks. The thing that makes America great are voices of reason like yours. Too bad, our elected officials don't listen.
Ya–agreed–but that's not as far as it should go, probably will go. Afganistan will be paid a few trillion $ in reparation payments in addition to the rebuilding Moore spoke of. And Iraq is no doubt owed about double whatever Afganistan is owed. Where ya gonna get all that gold? bush sure screwed the US and the World for that matter, to say nothing of the death and destruction directly caused by his policies! All illegal on the world stage too, by the way. Now Obama is compounding the problem. What a goddamn mess. All the death and destruction that has happened from the onslaught boggles the mind. And they keep going on about “what caused the economic melt down”? For crying out loud the main reason has to be the plunder of the US treasure by bush and his henchman to wage these illegal àctions! But you never hear a peep about that.
This guy is a cancer to america. ever since his fictional f-911 movie, ive lost all respect for this fat pos. Moore's represtations are discredited time after time. He is all about one thing; being controversial. Which translates into dollars. He is the rush limbaugh of the democratic party.
END this Afghan occupation, this total waste of our money and lives, set aside daily slaughter of Afgan people. I mean we are told we are in Afghanistan because of threat of Taliban/Alqaeda. Give us a break. what threat!!!!
I mean to see what a pathetic of a nothing of nothing threat (Army) Taliban (or Alqaeda) is consider the FACTS::
How many Tanks does Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Fighter Planes does Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Ships does Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Missiles does Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Helicopters does Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Submarines does Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Naval basis does Taliban or Alqaeda have? ZERO. How many Air Force basis does Taliban or Alqaeda have? ZERO. etc. etc. ZEROS are the arsenal (the threat) from Taliban or Alqaeda. Indicating that the fear we need to have from Alqaeda should in fact be near ZERO. Full article here: http://anoox.com/blog/power2people.37824
Brian (et al), the minute we leave the Taliban are going to move in — no doubt. Is that desirable? I was just in Kabul and spoke with many educated Afghans both in private sector and parliamentary positions — everyone I spoke with says Obama's tactics are an improvement upon the Bush Admin. and they are in favor of Operation Moshtarak despite its faults which need improvement. I personally will reserve my opinion until learning more, but appreciate helpful answers (aka angles, as there seem to be no answers) to my original question.
Why does the United States HAVE to keep the people of Aghanistan safe from the Taliban? They should be doing it themselves. How much help do you think the United States would get from other countries if the situation was reversed? Not much; our invasion of a foreign country that had nothing to do with 9-11 makes us hated around the world! Bring our troops home. We are NOT the world's policemen. Let the UN deal with the Afghanistan/Taliban conflict.
Before NATO/US occupation the Taliban was in (full) control, Kabul included — I don't think it's in anyone's security interests to return to those times. Possibly the problem was we didn't maintain our assistance at a crucial time and instead focused on Iraq. What do you think?
It is not our job to keep people of Afghanistan “safe from Taliban”. Taliban are afghanis. All we should do is keep up diplomatic pressure and cut of aid and link to any country that provides for the radical elements in the Taliban, and negotiate with the progressive elements of Taliban to stand in elections. They actually have a very good chance of winning at this point!!
Although I fall pretty far left on the political spectrum, and I am a fan of Michael Moore, I feel that most people miss the point of what is happening in Afghanistan. The unfortunate reality is that a neighboring state, Pakistan, is a fairly unstable state that just happens to have nuclear weapons (some even predict it will become a failed state soon). Of course, a failing nuclear state will have major implications for United State's interests (i.e. preventing nuclear proliferation). Also, let's not forget, a lot of Al Qeada activity is taking place in the Afghan/Pakistan Boarder.
Thus, U.S. interest in Afghanistan is two-fold:
1. Misdirection – Keeping Al Qaeda pre-occupied in the region to prevent them from provoking the failure of the Pakistani state (this is not to say that I think that Pakistan is an outstanding global citizen, but do we really want Al Qaeda provoking the collapse of a nuclear power to take advantage of the regional instability?)
2. Preparedness – Have forces available in the region to keep it from collapsing into chaos if the state of Pakistan does fail anytime soon. While the U.S. military may not be able to stop the region from collapsing into complete chaos, it may be able to secure the nuclear weapons to prevent them from falling into undesirable hands (i.e. Al Qaeda and Taliban that we just left to their own devices).
I am from Afghanistan and I know how dangerous it will become for the world if the international community decides to pull out its forces. With all due respect, Mr Moore's intellectual drives prevent him from seeing the reality of how things may unfold in a harmful way – even for the US- if the Taliban are left free to come to power again. The apology part of his sentence is absolutely nonsense. It is like : we apologize for disrupting your process of being annihilated by the Taliban.
I felt Obama was enticed to help the US Army have a chance to redeem itself because Bush reversed and went to Iraq and they never had a chance to get the job done. there was no WMD. 5,000 Marines are dead and 80,000 wounded. the plan to invade was long before 911 happened and a million Iraqees are wounded and 650,000 are dead the whole fiasco is a destabilized middle east chaos. Our righteousness was shameful as we never looked at the soldiers coffins on return. We lost in Vietnam and Iraq and we want to Bomb Iran. The surge did not work in Iraq. and now all they are mouthing off about is Don't ask Don't tell. How do we have time for that subject if we are trying to end this thing with a victory. Like Michael Moore whom celebrated his uncle's death whom died in Japan. I was so moved to see that on the Rachel Maddow show. I lost my Grandpa in WW1 in the Somme 1916. 2 million men died in two months in trenches less than 20 years later 76 million people died in WW2. Then Korea 3 million dead 1950. Then the Vietnam 55 ,000 died and we reluctantly made a monument for their service. Then Iraq. Then 49 nations return to Karsai milking us for what we got in Afghanistan. As we print fake money held to ransom to the yellow man The US forces are present in 47 Nations around the Globe. Any man whom thinks to solve the world problems with violence as eight Nations have nukes is insane. We are heading for an ecological disatar that will take a thousand years to clean up. Kill Bin Laden.
I agree, I wish the UN was taken seriously so we could do just that. Someday in the future I hope, but if the US turns its back on Afghanistan again that doesn't bode well for building UN strength in these matters. Isolationism didn't work in WWII and it's still not the answer. I respectfully disagree with you that the US is hated around the world – the majority of civilians in most countries are merely curious and hospitable to Americans and certainly much of the world is enamored with American lifestyle for better or worse – but to your point there are of course factions that do hate and gov'ts can fall in that category as well.
“Radical elements in the Taliban” — thanks Myaa, that's a more exact definition of who we're discussing. Indeed, the entire Taliban community isn't the culprit and bringing progressive leadership to that community is key.
Mr Moore is the American voice of sanity. America is very fortunate to have a man of his stature. I'd like to see him run for public office, for the American political scene needs more people like him. Go, Micheal, and give 'em hell!
You are quite correct. The reason they are there is because the elite love a good war. They're nothing but war profiteers and do not care how many people have to die just as long as they can get their greedy, filty little paws on a few extra bucks. They're absolute monsters. They're the reason the world is so screwed up. You know, money is the root of all evil. Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth!
We keep the people in Afghanistan safe by bombing the sh*t out of them.Remember the bumper sticker during the Vietnam War “We destroyed the village in order to save it”.As soon as we kill all the women & children and guarantee that there will be no future generations of Afghans then we will attack Iran as the US must constantly feed “The Creature from the Pentagon” aka “The Military Industrial Complex” or they will threaten to close down and create additional unemployment.
How is it possible to root out a liberation movement that has the backing of 80% of the population? 90% of the land area is controlled by the insurgents and 10% (only in cities) are in the hands of the american picked Afghan mercenary leaders. There are about 40 million Pashtun tribes alone. The US and the NATO allies must be crazy to call 40 mil people as Taliban and try to eradicate them. What is the real purpose of american invasion of Afghanistan? 9/11 Terrorist attack can never be the real reason, if that is so american should have attacked and occupied Saudi Arabia first before moving on to Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and in about three years time to Iran. The REAL intention of attacking and occupying Afghanistan is to help american oil companies help build the oil pipe lines from the oil rich Caspian sea area. The Americans talked to the so called good Talibans (ready to receive bribe) and asked the US to have 8 US bases, if agreed they will pull out of Afghanistan
How is it possible to root out a liberation movement that has the backing of 80% of the population? 90% of the land area is controlled by the insurgents and 10% (only in cities) are in the hands of the american picked Afghan mercenary leaders. There are about 40 million Pashtun tribes alone. The US and the NATO allies must be crazy to call 40 mil people as Taliban and try to eradicate them. What is the real purpose of american invasion of Afghanistan? 9/11 Terrorist attack can never be the real reason, if that is so american should have attacked and occupied Saudi Arabia first before moving on to Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and in about three years time to Iran. The REAL intention of attacking and occupying Afghanistan is to help american oil companies help build the oil pipe lines from the oil rich Caspian sea area. The Americans talked to the so called good Talibans (ready to receive bribe) and asked the US to have 8 US bases, if agreed they will pull out of Afghanistan
Jaswant Singh says that in the last six decades there has been a shift in global centre of discord from Europe to East and South Asia and termed the US drone attacks in Pakistan “unacceptable”. He added that foreign troops are fighting in South Asia which is “unacceptable” and feels that it is a great failure on the part of all of us, that includes India and Pakistan. These are genuinely well thought out, scholarly observation on the part of Jaswant Singh. Because every power system in the world India, China, Russia, Israel, Europe, gained from 9/11 because 9/11 gave the opportunity to crush internal dissent, in the case of India Kashmir, in the case of China Uighurs, in the case of Israel Palestine and so on. But nations take this temporary success into possible permanent successes under the illusion of American help. The US is using the classical Machiavellian policy of getting two enemies, for instance in South Asia( India and Pakistan, and in the Middle East Iraq and Iran) to fight each other but the US pretends to bring peace to the subcontinent by helping to solve the Kashmir dispute( in the Middle East to stop Iranian Revolution of 1979 spreading to the American cronies) USA will allow Pakistan and India to act up to a point. But if India or Pakistan for that matter breaks the rules, they are going to be punished ( as Iraq was punished after the Iran-Iraq war). History has many instances of this, in Vietnam, in Iran, in Iraq, in Nicaragua, in Haiti, in Domincan Republic, in Algeria. Anyone who is not going to accept American orders is going to pay for it. That is the way the US runs its power system. But as long as India and Pakistan, more or less obey orders, there is no reason for the US to antagonize them. This is American imperial management.
The US did not organise (under Reagan) the Muslim jihadis to liberate Afghanistan , it did for its own purposes. This harmed Afghanistan profoundly . The Russians would have withdrawn from Afghanistan even without American intervention. The Afghan resistance was turned into foreign backed terrorism by the Americans again for their own purposes-the Americans wanted to hold on. Contrary to what some say, the Northern Alliance were a bunch of overlords and incorrigible terrorists too, led by a warlord Abdul Haq. They are not angels. The fact is that the Americans did not want to overthrow the Talibans with or without the Northern Alliance, as a matter of fact the US were talking to Taliban asking them to allow American bases and in turn, the US agreeing to allow power sharing. The fact is that the USA resorted to proxy forces to topple the Taliban and the proxies were (Northern Alliance) definitely no better than the Taliban. As a matter of fact the Taliban were able to seize control of the country so easily in 1996 precisely because the hatred and resentment of the majority of Afghans against the very war lords of the Northern Alliance. The Talibans provided the Afghans a greater degree of stability and the Talibans had the blessings of both the Pakistan Govt and Washington. The US wants to bring back to power the same warlords who were the source of all sorts of disasters when they ruled the country after the collapse of Najibullah. The Northern Alliance warlords now control the bulk of the country, and they leave it to the US stooge Hamid Karzai to play the role of President; it is really a façade. When it comes to human rights there is no difference between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Under the Taliban narcotics production and trafficking had been substantionaly reduced, but under the northern Alliance the country has become a narco-state . The US does not make a difference between Taliban and Northern Alliance
Liberation Struggle by the South African National Congress is an excellent example. Britain then was ruled by an elected dictator called Margaret Thatcher who secretly helped the South African minority white regime simply because of the UK’s huge trade links with South Africa. After all colonialism is a career. We have to make a difference between the national liberation movements (the west brands them as terrorists) and the blind and brutal terrorism. In the 1980s, President Reagan described the Talibans as the finest gentlemen and compared them to American freedom fighters, the same talibans when they fight against American designs and occupation of their country, are branded as hard core terrorists. The west creates far too many slums (organised state terrorism )around the world. Naturally the slums attract tens of thousands of mosquitoes. You can not eliminate the mosquitoes (insurgents and terrorists) unless you remove the slums.
thinkers like Michael Moore has absolutely no chance to be elected even as a Congressman or a senator simply because he does not have the support of American Jews. Jews rule USA by proxy, they finance elections and spend generously on those politicians who favour the Zionist State.Paul Findley: Does any body remember him? Does any one know how did he lose after having been a member of congress for umpteen years. Please read his book 'THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT”. Even Obama will lose the second term as president if he he displeases the Israelis. Tel Aviv is the defacto capital of the US
Kieran, you are hitting the nail hard on the shameless head of American Political Admin. But you have ignored an importnat point, that is the American occupation, bombing, attack, invasion of a weaker and poorer nations in the world, is NOT TO WIN, NOT VICTORY, but annihilation, destruction, devastation and taking the victim nation into the Stone Age and leave them taking some 30-50 years to recover,( Vietnam the best example) and even when they eventually recover, we have to beg you Americans for aid. Thank God, the US has so far succeeded in its evil plan of hegemoney and world domination. Will it last another 100 years? How long did the Roman empire last? All good things should come to an end according to the laws of nature ( and we the believers say the laws of God) Take care and keep blogging
It was and it is the US that wants to keep pakistan an unstable nation. Musharaf was doing a wonderful job, but when he slightly crossed the American red line, the US planned to fire him and then in the name of democracy the americans put one of the worlds most corrupt guy as Pakistans leader. A leader should be a corrupt democrat or a horrendous dictator like Husni Mubaruk to serve american interests. Americans are the most dishonest( smartest) politicians in the world.
Dean, it is not Al-Qaeda the enemy, the US wants an imaginary enemy to dominate the world politically and militarily, economically and right now the imaginary enemy is Al-Qaeda, it was communism about 50 years ago( communism had never been an enemy in Vietnam), it was christian liberation in the Carribean a few decades ago, it is Islamic Political thinking or clash of civilization now, may be something elese in 20 years' time.
this is an excuse, leave the tribal people to work it out for themselves, Afghanistan was never colonised and never will be. If the west wants to bring civilization, spend more money on education, health care, infrastructure etc. As more and more people get education the tribal wars will come to an end, but the real purpose of americans is not to bring peace and happiness to the Afghan people. It is oil and economy.
I find your statement a true fact of what will happen and applaud you for speaking up… As far as Mr Moore. Maybe instead of offering something that isn't your to offer like an apology, Maybe you should in fact be proud that because this country has freedom of speech your allowed to say such trash.
I agree with the point that the West can invest more resources in education, infrastructure etc., however, it is a sensible position to think that those who try to block such investments, i.e. the Taliban, must be defeated first. And there is no reason to say that they cannot be defeated militarily while breaking their back in Pakistan and making the flow of their financial means much harder. A deterministic myth has been developed over years that the Taliban are somehow immune to military actions and no matter what you do they will grow stronger. That is not true. Talk to them, bribe them, chase them, kill them, attack their training centers and cut off their relations and they will lose the game.
Instead of winning the hearts and minds of Afghanistan,obama,is killing the innocent hearts and minds.Does the US want to be ocupied by a military force from a different country,flying thier bombers overhead worried your love ones could be killed,because of being mistaken as a safehouse,or their tanks roaming,the cities from east to west of america,their troops breaking down your door in the middle of the night etc…? I would be the first suicide bomber to stand up for the US,and destory these invaders.
For 9 years, at back-breaking expense, America exports democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan.
A primary purpose of democracy is governance. Governance integrates society under a set of acceptable rules. Finding the right set of rules requires heavy input from all factions of society. The primary source of this input, in a democratic system, is a congressperson.
Hypothesis: Democratic governance is measured by the ratio of citizens per congresspersons. More citizens per congressperson is less governance. Less citizens per congressperson is greater governance. Example: US, 1776, 26,666 citizens per congressperson. US, 2010, 573,831 citizens per congressperson.
Perhaps success is slow, elusive, and tedious in both Iraq and Afghanistan because the current governance ratio is wrong for this region. 1776 was a period of revolution and instability in the US. Greater governance (fewer citizens per congressperson) existed and was necessary for success.
Like the US in 1776, Iraq and Afghanistan may require more governance during their revolutionary period. That is Iraq and Afghanistan require fewer citizens per congressperson. This is initiated by adding more congresspersons to both governments.
Perhaps the problem is not a shortage of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a shortage of congresspersons (governance) in their democracies. Under this hypothesis, a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of congresspersons in Iraq and Afghanistan might finally bring stability to the region. It worked for America in 1776.
lets fix our own country first,health care,instead of major insurence companies giving billions for bonuses,start an alturnitive insurence company,instead of wall street investing billions in stocks,let our government invest in total solar energy,full electric cars,and saving our planet from polution,and start changing our ways of the almighty dollar rules everything
Interesting side note.
Harold Koh is the new John Yoo, who is the legal mind providing Obama classified legal justification for using drones which collaterally hit innocent civilians.
Why would a legal justification need to be kept secret?
Seems like we are not getting change…but an exchange…Yoo for Koh.
Move out the troops and move in the relief workers.
As usual, Michael Moore hits the nail on the head. He is one of my heroes in this country!
Many like-minded Americans think the same way, Mr. Moore, and have since 2001. Thank you for your pleas. It is ludicrous that American infrastructure is crumbling, people are starving and dying, and yet, both Congress and the President, who I generally admire, are throwing away so much of our money for something that will not now, nor ever, help America or Americans. Recent proposed budget cuts to Department of the Interior agencies that will severely limit their operations amounted to somewhere around 2 hours of what the War in Afghanistan costs. This is so wrong when our needs at home are so many. Again, many thanks. The thing that makes America great are voices of reason like yours. Too bad, our elected officials don't listen.
Ya–agreed–but that's not as far as it should go, probably will go. Afganistan will be paid a few trillion $ in reparation payments in addition to the rebuilding Moore spoke of. And Iraq is no doubt owed about double whatever Afganistan is owed. Where ya gonna get all that gold? bush sure screwed the US and the World for that matter, to say nothing of the death and destruction directly caused by his policies! All illegal on the world stage too, by the way. Now Obama is compounding the problem. What a goddamn mess. All the death and destruction that has happened from the onslaught boggles the mind. And they keep going on about “what caused the economic melt down”? For crying out loud the main reason has to be the plunder of the US treasure by bush and his henchman to wage these illegal àctions! But you never hear a peep about that.
This guy is a cancer to america. ever since his fictional f-911 movie, ive lost all respect for this fat pos. Moore's represtations are discredited time after time. He is all about one thing; being controversial. Which translates into dollars. He is the rush limbaugh of the democratic party.
How do you propose to keep the people of Afghanistan safe from a Taliban insurgency without NATO/US military?
Yea, and things have gotten so much safer since US military occupation. /sarcasm
END this Afghan occupation, this total waste of our money and lives, set aside daily slaughter of Afgan people. I mean we are told we are in Afghanistan because of threat of Taliban/Alqaeda. Give us a break. what threat!!!!
I mean to see what a pathetic of a nothing of nothing threat (Army) Taliban (or Alqaeda) is consider the FACTS::
How many Tanks does Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Fighter Planes does Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Ships does Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Missiles does Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Helicopters does Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Submarines does Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Naval basis does Taliban or Alqaeda have? ZERO.
How many Air Force basis does Taliban or Alqaeda have? ZERO.
etc. etc. ZEROS are the arsenal (the threat) from Taliban or Alqaeda.
Indicating that the fear we need to have from Alqaeda should in fact be near ZERO.
Full article here:
http://anoox.com/blog/power2people.37824
Brian (et al), the minute we leave the Taliban are going to move in — no doubt. Is that desirable? I was just in Kabul and spoke with many educated Afghans both in private sector and parliamentary positions — everyone I spoke with says Obama's tactics are an improvement upon the Bush Admin. and they are in favor of Operation Moshtarak despite its faults which need improvement. I personally will reserve my opinion until learning more, but appreciate helpful answers (aka angles, as there seem to be no answers) to my original question.
Why does the United States HAVE to keep the people of Aghanistan safe from the Taliban? They should be doing it themselves. How much help do you think the United States would get from other countries if the situation was reversed? Not much; our invasion of a foreign country that had nothing to do with 9-11 makes us hated around the world! Bring our troops home. We are NOT the world's policemen. Let the UN deal with the Afghanistan/Taliban conflict.
just like before nato/us milltary occupation. A whole lot safer than it is after the occupation.
Us created all this to justify their occupations.
America’s ‘Islamists’ go where oilmen fear to tread
By Peter Chamberlin
Online Journal Contributing Writer
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article…
only IF you could come out of your fantasy world, you'd find the cancer right in front of you. I know, no chance of that.
Before NATO/US occupation the Taliban was in (full) control, Kabul included — I don't think it's in anyone's security interests to return to those times. Possibly the problem was we didn't maintain our assistance at a crucial time and instead focused on Iraq. What do you think?
It is not our job to keep people of Afghanistan “safe from Taliban”. Taliban are afghanis. All we should do is keep up diplomatic pressure and cut of aid and link to any country that provides for the radical elements in the Taliban, and negotiate with the progressive elements of Taliban to stand in elections. They actually have a very good chance of winning at this point!!
Although I fall pretty far left on the political spectrum, and I am a fan of Michael Moore, I feel that most people miss the point of what is happening in Afghanistan. The unfortunate reality is that a neighboring state, Pakistan, is a fairly unstable state that just happens to have nuclear weapons (some even predict it will become a failed state soon). Of course, a failing nuclear state will have major implications for United State's interests (i.e. preventing nuclear proliferation). Also, let's not forget, a lot of Al Qeada activity is taking place in the Afghan/Pakistan Boarder.
Thus, U.S. interest in Afghanistan is two-fold:
1. Misdirection – Keeping Al Qaeda pre-occupied in the region to prevent them from provoking the failure of the Pakistani state (this is not to say that I think that Pakistan is an outstanding global citizen, but do we really want Al Qaeda provoking the collapse of a nuclear power to take advantage of the regional instability?)
2. Preparedness – Have forces available in the region to keep it from collapsing into chaos if the state of Pakistan does fail anytime soon. While the U.S. military may not be able to stop the region from collapsing into complete chaos, it may be able to secure the nuclear weapons to prevent them from falling into undesirable hands (i.e. Al Qaeda and Taliban that we just left to their own devices).
I am from Afghanistan and I know how dangerous it will become for the world if the international community decides to pull out its forces. With all due respect, Mr Moore's intellectual drives prevent him from seeing the reality of how things may unfold in a harmful way – even for the US- if the Taliban are left free to come to power again. The apology part of his sentence is absolutely nonsense. It is like : we apologize for disrupting your process of being annihilated by the Taliban.
I felt Obama was enticed to help the US Army have a chance to redeem itself because Bush reversed and went to Iraq and they never had a chance to get the job done. there was no WMD. 5,000 Marines are dead and 80,000 wounded. the plan to invade was long before 911 happened and a million Iraqees are wounded and 650,000 are dead the whole fiasco is a destabilized middle east chaos. Our righteousness was shameful as we never looked at the soldiers coffins on return. We lost in Vietnam and Iraq and we want to Bomb Iran. The surge did not work in Iraq. and now all they are mouthing off about is Don't ask Don't tell. How do we have time for that subject if we are trying to end this thing with a victory. Like Michael Moore whom celebrated his uncle's death whom died in Japan. I was so moved to see that on the Rachel Maddow show. I lost my Grandpa in WW1 in the Somme 1916. 2 million men died in two months in trenches less than 20 years later 76 million people died in WW2. Then Korea 3 million dead 1950. Then the Vietnam 55 ,000 died and we reluctantly made a monument for their service. Then Iraq. Then 49 nations return to Karsai milking us for what we got in Afghanistan. As we print fake money held to ransom to the yellow man The US forces are present in 47 Nations around the Globe. Any man whom thinks to solve the world problems with violence as eight Nations have nukes is insane. We are heading for an ecological disatar that will take a thousand years to clean up. Kill Bin Laden.
I agree, I wish the UN was taken seriously so we could do just that. Someday in the future I hope, but if the US turns its back on Afghanistan again that doesn't bode well for building UN strength in these matters. Isolationism didn't work in WWII and it's still not the answer. I respectfully disagree with you that the US is hated around the world – the majority of civilians in most countries are merely curious and hospitable to Americans and certainly much of the world is enamored with American lifestyle for better or worse – but to your point there are of course factions that do hate and gov'ts can fall in that category as well.
Thanks for the angle, Jack :)
“Radical elements in the Taliban” — thanks Myaa, that's a more exact definition of who we're discussing. Indeed, the entire Taliban community isn't the culprit and bringing progressive leadership to that community is key.
The corps need other pockets of individuality quelled and beaten, ready for colonization.
Mr Moore is the American voice of sanity. America is very fortunate to have a man of his stature. I'd like to see him run for public office, for the American political scene needs more people like him.
Go, Micheal, and give 'em hell!
You are quite correct.
The reason they are there is because the elite love a good war. They're nothing but war profiteers and do not care how many people have to die just as long as they can get their greedy, filty little paws on a few extra bucks. They're absolute monsters. They're the reason the world is so screwed up. You know, money is the root of all evil. Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth!
We keep the people in Afghanistan safe by bombing the sh*t out of them.Remember the bumper sticker during the Vietnam War “We destroyed the village in order to save it”.As soon as we kill all the women & children and guarantee that there will be no future generations of Afghans then we will attack Iran as the US must constantly feed “The Creature from the Pentagon” aka “The Military Industrial Complex” or they will threaten to close down and create additional unemployment.
Reminds me of a song from the sixties.
How is it possible to root out a liberation movement that has the backing of 80% of the population? 90% of the land area is controlled by the insurgents and 10% (only in cities) are in the hands of the american picked Afghan mercenary leaders. There are about 40 million Pashtun tribes alone. The US and the NATO allies must be crazy to call 40 mil people as Taliban and try to eradicate them. What is the real purpose of american invasion of Afghanistan? 9/11 Terrorist attack can never be the real reason, if that is so american should have attacked and occupied Saudi Arabia first before moving on to Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and in about three years time to Iran. The REAL intention of attacking and occupying Afghanistan is to help american oil companies help build the oil pipe lines from the oil rich Caspian sea area. The Americans talked to the so called good Talibans (ready to receive bribe) and asked the US to have 8 US bases, if agreed they will pull out of Afghanistan
How is it possible to root out a liberation movement that has the backing of 80% of the population? 90% of the land area is controlled by the insurgents and 10% (only in cities) are in the hands of the american picked Afghan mercenary leaders. There are about 40 million Pashtun tribes alone. The US and the NATO allies must be crazy to call 40 mil people as Taliban and try to eradicate them. What is the real purpose of american invasion of Afghanistan? 9/11 Terrorist attack can never be the real reason, if that is so american should have attacked and occupied Saudi Arabia first before moving on to Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and in about three years time to Iran. The REAL intention of attacking and occupying Afghanistan is to help american oil companies help build the oil pipe lines from the oil rich Caspian sea area. The Americans talked to the so called good Talibans (ready to receive bribe) and asked the US to have 8 US bases, if agreed they will pull out of Afghanistan
Jaswant Singh says that in the last six decades there has been a shift in global centre of discord from Europe to East and South Asia and termed the US drone attacks in Pakistan “unacceptable”.
He added that foreign troops are fighting in South Asia which is “unacceptable” and feels that it is a great failure on the part of all of us, that includes India and Pakistan. These are genuinely well thought out, scholarly observation on the part of Jaswant Singh. Because every power system in the world India, China, Russia, Israel, Europe, gained from 9/11 because 9/11 gave the opportunity to crush internal dissent, in the case of India Kashmir, in the case of China Uighurs, in the case of Israel Palestine and so on. But nations take this temporary success into possible permanent successes under the illusion of American help.
The US is using the classical Machiavellian policy of getting two enemies, for instance in South Asia( India and Pakistan, and in the Middle East Iraq and Iran) to fight each other but the US pretends to bring peace to the subcontinent by helping to solve the Kashmir dispute( in the Middle East to stop Iranian Revolution of 1979 spreading to the American cronies) USA will allow Pakistan and India to act up to a point. But if India or Pakistan for that matter breaks the rules, they are going to be punished ( as Iraq was punished after the Iran-Iraq war). History has many instances of this, in Vietnam, in Iran, in Iraq, in Nicaragua, in Haiti, in Domincan Republic, in Algeria. Anyone who is not going to accept American orders is going to pay for it. That is the way the US runs its power system. But as long as India and Pakistan, more or less obey orders, there is no reason for the US to antagonize them. This is American imperial management.
The US did not organise (under Reagan) the Muslim jihadis to liberate Afghanistan , it did for its own purposes. This harmed Afghanistan profoundly . The Russians would have withdrawn from Afghanistan even without American intervention. The Afghan resistance was turned into foreign backed terrorism by the Americans again for their own purposes-the Americans wanted to hold on. Contrary to what some say, the Northern Alliance were a bunch of overlords and incorrigible terrorists too, led by a warlord Abdul Haq. They are not angels. The fact is that the Americans did not want to overthrow the Talibans with or without the Northern Alliance, as a matter of fact the US were talking to Taliban asking them to allow American bases and in turn, the US agreeing to allow power sharing. The fact is that the USA resorted to proxy forces to topple the Taliban and the proxies were (Northern Alliance) definitely no better than the Taliban. As a matter of fact the Taliban were able to seize control of the country so easily in 1996 precisely because the hatred and resentment of the majority of Afghans against the very war lords of the Northern Alliance.
The Talibans provided the Afghans a greater degree of stability and the Talibans had the blessings of both the Pakistan Govt and Washington. The US wants to bring back to power the same warlords who were the source of all sorts of disasters when they ruled the country after the collapse of Najibullah. The Northern Alliance warlords now control the bulk of the country, and they leave it to the US stooge Hamid Karzai to play the role of President; it is really a façade. When it comes to human rights there is no difference between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. Under the Taliban narcotics production and trafficking had been substantionaly reduced, but under the northern Alliance the country has become a narco-state . The US does not make a difference between Taliban and Northern Alliance
Liberation Struggle by the South African National Congress is an excellent example. Britain then was ruled by an elected dictator called Margaret Thatcher who secretly helped the South African minority white regime simply because of the UK’s huge trade links with South Africa. After all colonialism is a career. We have to make a difference between the national liberation movements (the west brands them as terrorists) and the blind and brutal terrorism. In the 1980s, President Reagan described the Talibans as the finest gentlemen and compared them to American freedom fighters, the same talibans when they fight against American designs and occupation of their country, are branded as hard core terrorists. The west creates far too many slums (organised state terrorism )around the world. Naturally the slums attract tens of thousands of mosquitoes. You can not eliminate the mosquitoes (insurgents and terrorists) unless you remove the slums.
thinkers like Michael Moore has absolutely no chance to be elected even as a Congressman or a senator simply because he does not have the support of American Jews. Jews rule USA by proxy, they finance elections and spend generously on those politicians who favour the Zionist State.Paul Findley: Does any body remember him? Does any one know how did he lose after having been a member of congress for umpteen years. Please read his book 'THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT”. Even Obama will lose the second term as president if he he displeases the Israelis. Tel Aviv is the defacto capital of the US
Kieran, you are hitting the nail hard on the shameless head of American Political Admin. But you have ignored an importnat point, that is the American occupation, bombing, attack, invasion of a weaker and poorer nations in the world, is NOT TO WIN, NOT VICTORY, but annihilation, destruction, devastation and taking the victim nation into the Stone Age and leave them taking some 30-50 years to recover,( Vietnam the best example) and even when they eventually recover, we have to beg you Americans for aid. Thank God, the US has so far succeeded in its evil plan of hegemoney and world domination. Will it last another 100 years? How long did the Roman empire last? All good things should come to an end according to the laws of nature ( and we the believers say the laws of God) Take care and keep blogging
It was and it is the US that wants to keep pakistan an unstable nation. Musharaf was doing a wonderful job, but when he slightly crossed the American red line, the US planned to fire him and then in the name of democracy the americans put one of the worlds most corrupt guy as Pakistans leader. A leader should be a corrupt democrat or a horrendous dictator like Husni Mubaruk to serve american interests. Americans are the most dishonest( smartest) politicians in the world.
Dean, it is not Al-Qaeda the enemy, the US wants an imaginary enemy to dominate the world politically and militarily, economically and right now the imaginary enemy is Al-Qaeda, it was communism about 50 years ago( communism had never been an enemy in Vietnam), it was christian liberation in the Carribean a few decades ago, it is Islamic Political thinking or clash of civilization now, may be something elese in 20 years' time.
this is an excuse, leave the tribal people to work it out for themselves, Afghanistan was never colonised and never will be. If the west wants to bring civilization, spend more money on education, health care, infrastructure etc. As more and more people get education the tribal wars will come to an end, but the real purpose of americans is not to bring peace and happiness to the Afghan people. It is oil and economy.
I find your statement a true fact of what will happen and applaud you for speaking up… As far as Mr Moore. Maybe instead of offering something that isn't your to offer like an apology, Maybe you should in fact be proud that because this country has freedom of speech your allowed to say such trash.
I agree with the point that the West can invest more resources in education, infrastructure etc., however, it is a sensible position to think that those who try to block such investments, i.e. the Taliban, must be defeated first. And there is no reason to say that they cannot be defeated militarily while breaking their back in Pakistan and making the flow of their financial means much harder. A deterministic myth has been developed over years that the Taliban are somehow immune to military actions and no matter what you do they will grow stronger. That is not true. Talk to them, bribe them, chase them, kill them, attack their training centers and cut off their relations and they will lose the game.
Instead of winning the hearts and minds of Afghanistan,obama,is killing the innocent hearts and minds.Does the US want to be ocupied by a military force from a different country,flying thier bombers overhead worried your love ones could be killed,because of being mistaken as a safehouse,or their tanks roaming,the cities from east to west of america,their troops breaking down your door in the middle of the night etc…?
I would be the first suicide bomber to stand up for the US,and destory these invaders.
Вы не правы. Я уверен. Могу это доказать. Пишите мне в PM, пообщаемся….
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Nation Building
For 9 years, at back-breaking expense, America exports democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan.
A primary purpose of democracy is governance. Governance integrates society under a set of acceptable rules. Finding the right set of rules requires heavy input from all factions of society. The primary source of this input, in a democratic system, is a congressperson.
Hypothesis:
Democratic governance is measured by the ratio of citizens per congresspersons. More citizens per congressperson is less governance. Less citizens per congressperson is greater governance. Example: US, 1776, 26,666 citizens per congressperson. US, 2010, 573,831 citizens per congressperson.
Perhaps success is slow, elusive, and tedious in both Iraq and Afghanistan because the current governance ratio is wrong for this region. 1776 was a period of revolution and instability in the US. Greater governance (fewer citizens per congressperson) existed and was necessary for success.
Like the US in 1776, Iraq and Afghanistan may require more governance during their revolutionary period. That is Iraq and Afghanistan require fewer citizens per congressperson. This is initiated by adding more congresspersons to both governments.
Perhaps the problem is not a shortage of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a shortage of congresspersons (governance) in their democracies. Under this hypothesis, a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of congresspersons in Iraq and Afghanistan might finally bring stability to the region. It worked for America in 1776.
Citizen is coach to team democracy. Coach is responsible for success. It’s your call, coach.
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lets fix our own country first,health care,instead of major insurence companies giving billions for bonuses,start an alturnitive insurence company,instead of wall street investing billions in stocks,let our government invest in total solar energy,full electric cars,and saving our planet from polution,and start changing our ways of the almighty dollar rules everything
Thank you for your post. It was most interesting and thoughtful.