Category: War

At least according to this Counter-intelligence Afghanistan Vet:

Jay Bagwell, Afghanistan Veteran, Counter-intelligence



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Jay Bagwell:

My name is Jay Bagwell. I became a Counter Intelligence Agent in 2005, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2006.

As a Counter Intelligence Agent it is very clear to me, Torture puts our Troops in Danger.

Torture makes our Troops less Safe.

Torture creates Terrorists.

…

The Pentagon in the Classroom

We were saying what was actually going on but those doing it kept denying, as they passed on the talking points to their public mouths and those were carried forward by the flocks, that relished in being led, on any online board, right wing feeding troth site, and in reply’s wherever they could be placed.

No child left behind…. the battle lines?  

August Deadliest Month for U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

As August becomes the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, post-election tension continues to increase. A Washington Post reporter provides an update from Kabul.

For those that Still don’t get what War does to a Human Being, and not only those fighting, nor understand the same happens to civilians who experience extreme trauma, like the recent reports about the young girl kidnapped and now found almost two decades later, Read This Short Article!!

Friday August 28, 2009

cross-posted from ProgressiveBlue.com

(and no, not about the book though I am thinking of rereading it.)

Beginning in September, look for the launch of a new weekly column at Progressive Blue called “War & Peace.”

When I first thought about coming back with a regular column, I realized there are so many issues I care about, want to write about, that it was hard to narrow it down.  While my personal passions are human rights and civil rights, international development and education, these aren’t always what get me revved up.  So how to pull together all the many different topics I want to write about into a focused, coherent vein?  War and Peace.

Some things fit neatly into the War theme: they are destructive, negative, usually deliberate and always get my blood boiling.  Others fit into the Peace theme: positive, compassionate, progressive, and always get me to smile even in difficult subjects.

I’m still figuring out exactly which day of the week I’ll publish “War & Peace”, probably Tuesdays — do feel free to chime in.  And let me know what areas you’re interested in exploring: I have a list but it’s definitely not exhaustive so pile on.

      Crossposted at progressiveelectorate.com

(I’d just like to state clearly, this is not a rebuttal to the diary posted by Something the Dog Said, rather, consider it a differing opinion)

From WaPo

Prosecutor to CIA Abuse Allegations

by abuse allegations, they mean torture.

More!

From a Daily Kos diary

Breaking: “profanity-laced screaming match” at the White House

    Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

“You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year,” a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.    

and this on the heels of news this weekend

From isria.com

9 GOP Senators ask Holder for Mercy for Bus/Cheney

    Now, this is the key part of the news, because I do not think a 1/4 of the GOP Senate would put their necks out to save some no-name underlings.

    I think this is going all the way to the top, and, in my new found attempt to look at things in a glass half full view.

    Therefore, I give you my belief, as of now, that the ball is now rolling, it will build and build, and by the summer of 2010 going into 2012, America WILL lead to Bush and Cheney themselves.

    More below the fold

Sunday, NPR Morning Edition, 08.23.09 {4min 5sec.}

Daniel  Zwerdling, of NPR, continues his outstanding research into and reporting on the Army’s, and the Military’s, care of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD and other possible mental problems developed as to serving in these wars and occupations.

The lies upon lies to which our corrupt U.S. Foreign Policy is built upon hasn’t changed at all, with the 2008 Election and a new President. Unknown perhaps to most Americans, we today are just getting spoon-fed even more and more lies.

Quoting from Eric Margolis excellant article in CommonDreams.org:   Afghanistan

An election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic. This week’s stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by western powers is unlikely to bring either peace or tranquility to this wretched nation that has suffered 30 years of war.

The Taliban and its nationalist allies rejected the vote as a fraud designed to validate continued foreign occupation and open the way for western oil and gas pipelines.

The Taliban, which speaks for many of Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun, said it would only join a national election when U.S. and NATO troops withdraw.

The current war in Afghanistan is not about democracy, women’s rights, education or nation building. Al-Qaida, the other excuse, barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan.

The war really is about oil pipeline routes and western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin.

There will be neither peace nor stability in Afghanistan until all ethnic groups are enfranchised. The West must cease backing minority Tajiks and Uzbeks against majority Pashtun — who deserve their rightful share of power and spoils.

We can’t solve Afghanistan’s social or political problems by waging a cruel and apparently endless war. The solution to this unnecessary war is not more phoney elections but a comprehensive peace agreement among ethnic factions that largely restores the status quo before the 1970 Soviet invasion.

I’m not going to add anything, I’ve been saying what this video, and the series Robert Greenwald is putting together for eight damn years, and I haven’t been alone!!

With the final betrayal of the progressive left still stinging like salt rubbed into a raw wound and the Pope of Hope’s filthy Judas administration in full damage control mode after Sunday’s slip by Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius that the public option was about to have its life support unplugged. The public option (without it any ‘reform’ of health care is no more than garbage)was the feckless fallback position for the corporate puppet Obama rather than the right thing which would be national single payer insurance and in true form the white flag was already run up by the reigning lord of the jackass party. You would think with armed thugs now carring assault weapons prowling Obama town halls that he and his rotten liar cabal of Wall Street and insurance water carriers that he would be a bit less likely to alienate those who are the true base but once again it is made evident of how much we are all being played for fools and chumps and have been ever since the DLC decided to throw in with the Reagan Revolution.

Turns out that the Taliban isn’t getting all that much of its money from drugs.  Why get it from drugs when you can get it from Uncle Sam?

KABUL – It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country.

Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.

“Everyone knows this is going on,” said one U.S. Embassy official, speaking privately.

It’s classic East Coast politics.  The Taliban are the mob, and they get their cut.  A big cut.  

Then they use the money, from us, to fight us.

And why shouldn’t they fight us?  WE’RE ATTACKING THEM.

What’s lost in most of these discussions is the obvious elephant in the room — the only reason the Taliban is fighting us is because we’re there attacking them.

Why are we there, spending $133 million a day?

I repeat, we are spending throwing away $133 million A DAY, five and a half million bucks AN HOUR fighting the natives who are using our own money to defend themselves.

And the generals admit we are losing there.

Five and a half MILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR fighting a “war” that we are losing.

Only to find out that a lot of our money is going to the same people we’re fighting.

Now, my absurdity meter has redlined quite a few times over the years, but I think this completely smashes it.  

Of course what those figures don’t tell you is how much of that $5.5 million bucks an hour is going directly to American corporations.   I mean, it’s not going to the soldiers.  Right?  It’s going to the corporations who supply the machinery, the gasoline and diesel fuel (ESPECIALLY them), the arms makers, the bootmakers, hell, there must be hundreds of big corporations for whom this is a BIG portion of their daily cash flow.

$5.5 million bucks an hour.  To fight an opponent that we are also funding.

That’s what America has turned into.

The dog has caught its own tail and is devouring it.