Word from Afghanistan is local tribal leaders are upset about foreign aid from America that is going to war department contractors, who then take a lion’s share of the money, then dribble a little out to local areas. The Afghan tribal guys are threatening that if good old Uncle Sam doesn’t start giving the tons of cash directly to the local councils (for them to steal) “we’ll have to depend on the Taliban.” America, as usual, always relents to these types of extortion threats. Speaking as a party of one, I’m sick of it. Can you imagine what would happen if the Lone Grove, Oklahoma City Council “demanded” money from the U.S. government under threats?
When will we learn? Do we just have a crew of educated dolts running our government? Why not tell the Afghan thugs to “f___ yourselves and the burros you rode in on?” We are powerless! Obama is running the same type of ill-fated campaign as W! We get no relief! Is there no end to extortion from these thugs who run a government not much advanced since Biblical days? Where’s the outrage?
Everyone should recall that the U.S. supported radical Muslims in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and with the war over, found that it had armed and supplied a force that is inimical to it. With our new invasion of that backward country, we now are confronted with that force, and those arms.
There seemingly is no end to this. As I’ve said before, we’ll be in Afghanistan until the American people take to the streets to end it, just like Viet Nam. I hold out little hope that our new president will do so.
Let’s wait and see how much money and aid the Taliban give them. Maybe I’m one of those arrogant Americans, but why not cut them off, period?
Rome is right on with his comment. The 20 May New York Times reports American-made rounds are being found in magazines of rifles carried by Taliban warriors killed in battles in the Korangal Valley, an area of often fierce fighting near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Thus a strong possibility that with a vast inventory of weapons and ammo sent into Afghanistan during an 8-year conflict, poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces is resulting in USA made ordnance going directly into the enemy’s hands. Why not get out? We’ll have 70,000 troops there by September under Obama’s “surge” plan (sound familiar?) and we’ll accomplish nothing. Nada!
This is absolutely true.. it is all about the haves and have not. The poppy. Afganistan is a very hard place for any side to have a war. Good Grief. LOOk at history. Even Alexander the Great hated the country side. The terrain everything about the area is not good.
The only way to stop this maddness is to pay the folks off. WE have the troops there. Of course this means nothing.. Manpower do not feed mouths. What they need is supplies. $$. The less folks there, the better. What they need is $$. Organization. The big squeeze. Sqeeze hard then the criminals go away and find a new sand box to play in. Supply and demand is the name of the game there. People are not fighting over land. NOpe. Who wants that land. What they live on is the poppy. $$.
This reader is right on. The USA never, ever looks at history. We ignored the fact that Viet Nam had been invaded and occupied for over 1,000 years, but never successfully. We watched Ho Chi Minh kick the French out of IndoChina in 1954, and promptly went in, losing over 50,000 young lives and tearing our country apart in the process.
We then watched Russia invade Afghanistan in 1978. On July 3, 1979, Jimmy Carter ordered Robert Gates, director of the CIA, to immediately start supplying the Afghan mujahideen rebels with arms, including shoulder fired FIM-92 Stinger missiles. 15,000 Russians came home in body bags, including over 500 KGB members. So many died in the 9-year Russia-Afghan war that the Kremlin ordered the trains carrying the dead to arrive at midnight in Central Moscow.
Watching the Russians retreat in defeat, it appears to me that we have decided to follow the Red Army into the abyss. I predict we’ll be there as long as the Russians, lose many more young lives, and retreat in shame. It will happen as sure as it snows in Minnesota in December. (Interested readers are directed to a 1988 film, The Beast of War, the story of a Russian T-62 tank lost in Afghanistan. It’ll demonstrate what our troops are up against). As Rudyard Kipling once said “When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and Afghan women come out to cut up the remains, just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, and go to your God like a soldier.”
This is TRUE James. Our Leader take all these History courses yet do not understand the reason behind them.
Patton did. LOL Yet they stopped him. Why? I don’t know. Just think if he did invade Russia. Wow.