MSM Don’t Ask These Questions re: Afghanistan

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Cross-posted at Dkos http://www.dailykos.com/story/… and Firedoglake

The mainstream media do not ask our government the questions they should be asking about Afghanistan.  

I diaried about this last week.

Since the MSM won’t ask the tough questions, it’s up to you and me, it appears.

I’m a military dad whose progeny has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan in heavy combat, where the batallion had many KIAs and serious WIAs.

I’m sick of constant endless war based on specious reasoning, and I have questions I want Dick Durbin, my senator, to answer about Afghanistan.  It’s our service members and their families who are paying the price and bearing the burden for all of it.  Members of congress who keep shoveling the money for constant, endless war ought to look us families who OPPOSE it in the eye, and answer questions.

I raised the first two issues in last week’s diary.

To reiterate these:

First, reports abound of how American taxpayer dollars and American borrowed dollars are funding the Taliban.  One way this happens is when the Taliban skims from/shakes down contractors.  More here. Another way this happens is when we fund Pakistan’s military, which funds the ISI, which funds the Taliban.  More.  THEN the Taliban is better armed and equipped to attack our troops, which THEN becomes a rationale for….sending more troops?!?

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Are you wrapping your brain around this?  

On the off chance it hasn’t sunk in yet:

The United States Of America….that’s right….you and I….are funding the freakin’ Taliban (the “enemy”).  GOT IT?

What good is the Patriot Act, when the U.S. Government itself is funding the Taliban?  And why would Karzai and these people EVER want the U.S. to leave?!?  Huh?

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You could call it a deadly whirlpool we’re allowing ourselves to be sucked into, or, you could liken it to deadly quicksand.

The question is, just exactly WHO is being P.T. Barnum’s Sucker Of The 21st Century, eh?

How can our service members possibly be expected to succeed in this vicious circle of our own creation?

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And, a second matter:

Counterinsurgency doctrine requires the presence of a legitimate government to support, otherwise, you’re just supporting one group of bad actors over another group of bad actors.  Since Karzai’s government is corrupt and is predictably unpredictable, we don’t have a legitimate government there to work with. Without that, how can anyone possibly claim that we are doing COIN in Afghanistan? without smirking while saying it?  

And since we’re not doing COIN, what in the hell are we doing there, huh?

According to Gen. Petraeus, THIS is what we’re doing……….

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So, why in hell are we trying to do something that is impossible, hmm?

Sounds like a very bizarre, deadly and expensive experiment, to me.  All I’m sure is being accomplished is that defense contractors are lovin’ this, some generals are lovin’ it, some congress critters like Ike Skelton are lovin’ it, and America is unchallenged as the world’s greatest exporter of constant, endless war to one of the most miserable places on Earth.

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Of course, these are the very sort of questions which MSM reporters are not asking our government.  Our elected leaders must be glad they don’t, too, because these are questions which shatter any rationale for why we have a massive military footprint in Afghanistan and why we are sacrificing our service members and their families.

So, I have more questions to ask Sen. Durbin, after he’s answered the above questions to my face.

Here’s my third topic.  

Why are President Obama and the Congress allowing us to be drawn into Osama bin Laden’s trap?

OBL’s own words:

All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qa’ida in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies. This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers as we alongside the Mujahedin bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.

It would be fine with me if the mainstram media would ask Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and Pentagon brass, this sort of question.  But they don’t, so someone ought to.  I have the nerve to step up to the pitcher’s mound, so, does someone in the government have the nerve to step up to the plate?

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And, this is followed by the fourth, and related, topic:

The Pentagon and intelligence brass say there are only a few hundred international jihadists on the Af-Pak border.

The Taliban has no international jihad goals.  Their interests are local and regional, not international.

So, how and why does a big military footprint in Afghanistan keep us any safer than would a small anti-terrorist operation?

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Sen. Durbin recently spoke with PBS, and had this to say:

Durbin, who voted against the Iraq war but for the Afghanistan war, said the consequences of combat in Afghanistan, particularly growing numbers of wounded and disabled veterans, “weigh dearly on me.” He added that Americans must continue to ask not only what the US has achieved in Afghanistan but also “how will it end, when will it end, and at what cost.”

I agree.  I have more questions I’d like to ask Sen. Durbin in person about Afghanistan.

I seek dialogue.  Discussion.  I have no clue if any of the above topics are understood by, or are even in the consciousness, of Sen. Durbin.  If so, he’s not talking about these topics.  and, the MSM aren’t asking him or others about these topics.

To be continued.

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This is another live blog from the front porch at Sen. Dick Durbin’s office in Springfield, Illinois, in the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.  It’s a beautiful little park full of historic Lincoln-era homes, owned by the Dept. of the Interior, and managed by the National Park Service.  Sen. Durbin has rented office space in the George Shutt House since Sen. Durbin was a member of the House of Representatives.  As is shown on the bottom of his Senate web site home page, the address is 525 S. 8th St, Springfield IL 62703. Thanks! to Sen. Durbin’s Springfield office staff who have always been gracious.