Tag: Afghanistan

Mar 31 2011

“I’m from America, and I’m here to help you.”

Ronald Reagan once claimed that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

But of course that senile stooge for Big Money got it wrong. The nine most terrifying words in any language are…

“I’m from America, and I’m here to help you.”

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My update of the Reagan Doctrine (insofar as that senile stooge ever had a “doctrine,” or even an idea, except stooging for Big Money) occurred to me when Baghdad was selected as the worst city in the world on the Mercer 2010 Quality of Life Survey.

After seven years of beneficent American occupation!

And Baghdad had to beat out some real humdingers among messed up cities to win that prize!

More messed up than Khartoum?

SUDAN/

You betcha!

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This was reminiscent of some recent headlines from Afghanistan, selected by Save the Children as the worst place in the world to be born. The worst place to be a mother! The worst place to be a child!

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After nine long years of American “assistance!”

And now it’s Libya’s turn to hear those terrifying words…

“I’m from America, and I’m here to help you.”

And isn’t it just too fucking perfect that Obama can send that message from everybody’s favorite guided missile destroyer… the USS Barry!

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The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launches a Tomahawk cruise missile from the ship’s bow in the Mediterranean Sea on March 29. Barry is currently supporting Joint Task Force (JTF) Odyssey Dawn as part of the international response to the unrest in Libya.

Mar 22 2011

We Got Us A Neo-Nazi Merc Working in Afghanistan

And I’m goin to hazard a guess probably not the only one. Who in the hell does the screening for these so called ‘private contractors’ that are then sent into these occupation theaters?

I just caught this, and an update to the ‘kill team’ of U.S. soldiers.

This goes Way Beyond Disgusting!!

Especially what’s written about this, and people wonder why the world is turning it’s collective backs on us!!

This a**wipe can and should ask himself how many soldiers his actions have gotten killed while he parades around thinking he’s superior, scumbag!!

Mar 22 2011

Graphic Photos from Afghanistan

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Der Spiegel recently published some “graphic” photos of American soldiers in action in Afghanistan.

The details don’t matter.

Mar 21 2011

“Why do they hate us so?” You Asked!

If the past decade plus didn’t answer that question, after 9/11, as well as the one about our ‘freedoms’, because you didn’t pay attention to what’s done in your names over the decades, maybe these very recent news reports will jog that overwhelming arrogance and total apathy embedded in the minds of this country.

Mar 13 2011

A Massacre in Farah Province, Afghanistan

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Photocredit: Guy Smallman

Except for the graves, this photo from the village of Granai looks like most of the rest of Farah Province, where the only river dried up four years ago, and extreme drought prevails everywhere.

About 140 civilians were killed here by a US airstrike on May 4, 2009. The United States lied about it at the time, and they never stopped lying.

Mar 11 2011

Day 3429 of the War in Afghanistan

The United States has been killing civilians and “insurgents” in Afghanistan every day for the last 3429 days, and it’s a sure bet that the United States will kill somebody somewhere tomorrow in Afghanistan, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and for as far into the future as anyone can foresee.

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Mar 11 2011

The Sheen’s, Lohan’s, Oscar’s Style’s vs The Fallen Soldiers’

I’m not going to add anything except this to what I’m posting below, we’ve got a decade plus of living the reality while also no mention of the Country demanding ‘Sacrifice’ for what they readily support,

The Country doesn’t even understand the damage they’ve created with the actions of these two now long running occupations and the hate rhetoric towards others, as a group, that still continues!

Mar 08 2011

600,000 Afghan Children on the Street

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Two girls share a pomegranate in Kabul

At least 600,000 children live on the streets of Afghanistan.

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Mar 05 2011

Old News from Afghanistan

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“Children die from tetanus…”

Kandahar, Afghanistan, October 13, 2010…

The Red Cross reported a “drastic increase” in the number of amputations from war injuries, reflecting the nature of the violence.

Reto Stocker, the Red Cross chief in Kabul, said the casualties being seen at Mirwais hospital were only “the tip of the iceberg.”

This was near the beginning of Obama’s “surge” around Kandahar, and because of intense fighting almost everywhere in the district, many people with treatable injuries and illnesses couldn’t get to clinics or hospitals.

“The result is that children die from tetanus, measles and tuberculosis – easily prevented with vaccines – while women die in childbirth and otherwise strong men succumb to simple infections.”

Mar 04 2011

Incalculable

by Kathy Kelly

Recent polls suggest that while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3% took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections.  The issue of the economy weighed heavily on voters, but the war and its cost, though clear to them and clearly related to the economy in their thinking, was a far less pressing concern.  

U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kumar province, shooting them “one after another” this past Tuesday March 1st.  (“The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.” (NYT 3/2/11)).

Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve.  “The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,” said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. “I myself was involved in the burial,” Noori said. “Yesterday we buried them.” (AP, March 2, 2011)  General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.  

He has had many tragedies to apologize for, just counting Kunar province alone.  

Mar 02 2011

A Tourist Photo from Takhar Province

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Kuchi caravan in Takhar Province, Afghanistan

I cropped and rebalanced this image out of yet another idiotic snapshot from yet another tourist in Afghanistan, white balance set to flourescent with a hideous yellow cast all over these Kuchi nomads, and you might think that out of hundreds of thousands of tourist photos from Afghanistan at least a few would escape the mind-mangling combination of idle curiosity and pitiful “artistic” ambition which defines “tourist photo,” just as you might think that after nine long years of slaughter and corruption, the US occupation of Afghanistan would eventually get something right, even by accident, by the law of averages or the law of large numbers or some other brute-force statistical anomaly, like winning five bets in a row at roulette, but the wheel of Afghanistan is infinite, all the tourist photos are junk, and everything about the US occupation is inevitably fucked up.

Feb 25 2011

A Revolutionary Speech by the Secretary of Defense

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Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point today…

In my opinion, any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wasn’t just cobbling together yet another version of the wishy-washy “Powell Doctrine” enunciated once upon a time by the former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, with all its easily miscontrued conditions: Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear attainable objective?

Yes, of course the Vietcong, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, penguins, liberals, and lolcats threaten vital national security interests!

This shit meant nothing, not even to the whore/general who dreamed it up and then turned into a cheerleader for invading Iraq, the Land of Imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction!

But there isn’t nearly as much wiggle-room about a big American army in Asia!

Or Africa!

Or the Middle East!

“Don’t go there!”

And after enunciating the “Gates Doctrine,” Gates launched a full-tilt attack on the bureaucratic imbecility of the Pentagon!

To find inspiring work for its young officers after combat deployments, the Army must encourage unusual career detours, Mr. Gates said, endorsing graduate study, teaching or duty in a policy research institute, Congressional office or other branch of government. The defense secretary urged the cadets to master foreign languages and cultures.

Mr. Gates said his main worry was that the Army might not overcome institutional bias that favored traditional career paths. He urged the service to “break up the institutional concrete, its bureaucratic rigidity in its assignments and promotion processes, in order to retain, challenge, and inspire its best, brightest, and most-battled tested young officers to lead the service in the future.”

Master foreign languages and cultures!

War as a liberal art!

What next? A Department of Peace, and an honest citizen for President instead of a cowardly, sadistic thug like George W. Bush, or a sociopathic con-man like Barack Obama?

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