Forum Post: "We still have 77,000 US troops in Afghanistan and each one is at risk." - Dennis Kucinich
Posted 11 years ago on Sept. 16, 2012, 9:22 p.m. EST by TrevorMnemonic
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I cannot begin to describe what a nightmare of epic proportions the situation in Afghanistan has become. Our troops are sitting ducks while they try to defend Afghanistan. They are being murdered, shot dead at close range by Afghan police (or insurgents wearing fake or stolen police uniforms). US bases are under attack by well equipped, well-trained insurgents wearing (stolen or fake) US uniforms. We still have 77,000 US troops in Afghanistan and each one is at risk.
Stand up for our troops! Bring them home!
Innocent civilians are being slaughtered by "precision" NATO airstrikes. The latest in an endless list of appalling NATO actions: Last night, a small group of women and girls were out gathering firewood for their families in a remote Afghan province. NATO mistakenly identified them as insurgents and launched an air attack with "precision munitions" which killed eight and injured seven\, putting the lie to the sanitized war.
NATO, in the name of liberating countries, has been responsible for a horrific toll of innocent civilian deaths by airstrikes, creating deep hatred toward the US, which is NATO's largest funding source, making our troops even more vulnerable. Should NATO leaders be held accountable for their air strikes which kill innocent civilians? Don't you think the US should get out of Afghanistan?
- Dennis Kucinich
follow Dennis on facebook - http://www.facebook.com/denniskucinich
or read his press releases here - http://kucinich.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx?DocumentTypeID=461:496:499:500:501:502:518:651:1130:1336
Speaking the truth isn't for the weak. Kucinich always tells it like it is.
With reference to Afghanistan, "Graveyard of Empires" - but alas also an early grave for so many of its long suffering people, I re-post the following points and observations :
1) Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country, made up of Aimaks, Baluchis, Hazaras, Kazahks, Kirghis, Pamiris, Tajhiks, Turkmen, Uzbeks and at ~42% of the total population, the largest single group, the Pashtuns / Pukhtoons (- dependent on Northern or Southern dialects).
2) The historical Pashtun homeland is divided in two by the Afghan / Pakistan border. This porous "border" is in effect the old "Durand Line", the de facto western territorial limit of the British Empire in the Indian subcontinent. The Pashtuns have NEVER recognised this arbitrary line on someone else's map and no external power or authority has ever been able to define it, let alone patrol or police it.
3) Pashtun society is extremely conservative, deeply traditional, unrelentingly patriarchal and tribal. The Women lead difficult lives far removed from any "Liberal Western Norms". A Pashtun is a member of a family group, a sub-clan, a clan and then a tribe. At over 45 million people globally, they are the world's largest tribally affiliated ethnic group.
4) Conservative Sunni Islam (tho' there is one Shia Tribe) and the Lex Talionis, Pre-Islamic honour code "Pashtunwalli", are the law, organisational guidelines and ethical principles by which this proud, fiercely independent and hardy mountain people regulate their society alongside and within their 'Jirga / Shura / Majlis', collective gathering and decision making systems.
5) The phrase "Revenge is a dish best served cold", is the English approximation and appropriation of the Pashtun original. Another Pashtun dictum is: "Me against my brothers; me and my brothers against my cousins; me, my brothers and my cousins against the world". Pashtun males are considered adult at 13 years of age and are honour bound to defend "Zan, Zhar, Zamin" - Women, Wealth and Land. Notions of loyalty and duty to kith and kin, honour, respect, shame, "not losing face" and "dying on one's feet rather than living on one's knees" are central to their world view and modus vivendi.
6) The word "Taliban" simply translates as "Students", as they were originally recruited, equipped and organised with the enthusiastic help, encouragement and funding of the Saudis, ISI, MI6 & CIA from the Madrasas (religious schools) in the numerous Pashtun refugee camps, during and after the war to oust the Soviet armed forces and the devastating civil war that followed it. Their grandfathers and fathers were then of course, known and eulogised as the Anti-Communist "Mujahideen". The word "Taliban" is now nothing other than a obfuscatory, propagandist and subversive "meme" for what is in actuality, under various names and guises - 'The Pashtun National Resistance Movement'.
7) The peoples of present day Afghanistan, whether Pashtun or otherwise, are the time served world champions of guerilla warfare and insurgency. No army or empire has ever been able to totally defeat, dominate or subjugate them. (Alexander the Great's) Greek, Scythian, Hepthalite, Bactrian, Persian, Mongol, Arab, Turkic, British and Russian armies have all been severely mauled and bloodied at some time or other and have had to retreat, pay tribute to or come to an accommodation with, these fierce and warlike peoples.
8) The Americans - despite their Massive Military Superiority, are the latest to learn these same painful lessons. This time however, the whole world is (quite intentionally?) further driven towards a "Clash of Civilisations", as advocated by Samuel Huntington, Benny Morris, William Safire, Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, Donald, Robert & Fred Kagan, Norman & John Podhoretz, Richard & Daniel Pipes, Bill Kristol, Richard Perle , Paul Bremer & many Neo-Con ; Paleo-Imperialist others.
9) This PNAC / NeoCon ambition, aspiration and world view stimulates and is mirrored by (as predicted by 'The Probability Gamers' in Herzliya and Langley!) the grand "End Time" schematic of a few thousand Jihadis worldwide, whose fanaticism and fury ; rage and resistance is fuelled, stoked and provoked by the Scientific Uber-Violence and Imperial Jackboot of the "Coalition of the Complicit", under the aegis and "Blood Spattered Banner of the Usurped States of Amnesiacs".
10) What the Warmongering US, "National Security" / Military / Industrial / Corporate / Banking cliques did NOT seem to know of the Buddhist Vietnamese - in that they were a fiercely independent people, who had fought the Mongol, Khmer, Chinese, Japanese and French Imperiums before they defeated the USA - so do they NOW seem NOT to know of the Muslim Afghans.
~
Thus consider, perhaps an Unending War is just what is Really Wanted by the Dark Forces of the 'Bankster-US/MIC' Nexus. After all, 9/!! was the declared raison d'etre for the Illegal and Immoral War on Afghanistan but as that attack clearly had nothing to do with Afghans or Afghanistan, then ... ?
Empire and 'WARFARE' abroad and austerity and 'UNFAIR' at home - this hate, horror, hubris and hypocrisy just can NOT go on and on !!!
Dennis Kucinich always Speaks Truth To Power.
fiat lux ; fiat pax ; fiat justitia ruat caelum ...
''Notorious CIA-Backed Units Will Remain in Afghanistan'', by Marjorie Cohn:
https://truthout.org/articles/as-trump-orders-us-out-of-afghanistan-notorious-cia-backed-units-will-remain/
also - https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/01/what-kind-maniacs-are-running-country-pentagon-rings-new-year-joke-about-dropping by Jon Queally
pacem in terris?
Re. Afghanistan: ''Trump cancels peace deal with Taliban'' ...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49624132 +
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47391821 (Cost)
https://www.apnews.com/5b43a817115a46aab585700ee7e67a23
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/08/donald-trump-says-he-was-due-to-host-taliban-at-camp-david
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-taliban-meeting-camp-david-afghanistan-peace-talks-off-a9096191.html
fiat lux; fiat justitia; fiat pax ...
In English they don't say soldiers, citizens, humans, fathers but "troops" . Let's switch to another language of peace.
This is what happens when you politicize war.
it becomes neverending
It invites corruption, wastes tax dollars, and costs American lives under the guise of an objective never fully intended; it all became painfully obvious when Obama said, "don't burn the poppy, these good people will starve," and then proceeded to mail them 300 mil to encourage alternative crops destined to failure. We can't win wars with politicians conducting them; we only enrich those who form the supply lines and in the meantime we're burning up tax payer dollars, military resources, and young American lives.
Peace sells but who's buying?
Well, ask yourself that the next time you watch a football game - nobody buys it.
If Americans follow the President's lead, then there will be peace. We must protest to make the 99% candidates like Obama work for OWS!
It's almost been 4 years... STILL AT WAR... we're filling the straight of hormuz for war games exercises preparing for a war with Iran in HR4310 which like indefinite detention Obama will sign... the middle east is in turmoil. 77,000 troops still in Afghanistan 2 years after the highest civilian death rate in that country... more drone strikes... more groups added to the kill lists... including new groups formed in Pakistan. Black Water style organizations still in use in hundred million dollar contracts.
Romney and Obama both said war is an option against Iran's WMD/Nuclear program. Both plan to continue the drone strikes in the next presidency.
War is not peace.
Peace is peace.
Romney and Obama work on behalf of Boeing and KBR
[Removed]
The Bush-Cheney-"Denny" Hastert-Bill Frist-Republicons reign on our government, and their Laissez-Faire corporatization (pick-up where Raygun left off) that led to the Enroning, 9-11ing and the Wall Streeting of America will cost us civilian and military lives, homes and property, treasure and jobs for an indeterminate amount of years to come, more if (like we did in 2010) we let them back into control.
Wake up and smell reality you simplistic utopian idealists! Or divulge your true fascist colors!
We have only ourselves to blame... or to praise. Vote!
Considering that our children are dying in that third world shithole and both candidates don't give a fuck ( it's the economy stupid) they'll just keep dying. Hell, they keep getting killed by all those "moderate, peace loving Muslims" that I keep on hearing about. Especially the ones being trained by our troops to police that land of peace.
Exactly.
We should get the hell out of that part of world. Even if we must pay more to drive.
There was a dad of a troop recently on tv. deceased by Afghanistan troops he was training. Dad said kid said deployment was extended, and sadly kid predicted his own death, and it was inside of us base, apparently.
That part of world doesn't want us troops on soil, no matter what bush, Cheney, and the other gray haired guys told msm.
Oil is not worth us blood.
Wrong O Buzzard Breath - it is not moderates - it is fanatics - fanatics just as nasty as white supremacists. Also consider that those who resent our military presence have every right to resent our military presence in their country - especially as our military presence is more about securing access to resources than it is to defending the civilian population or even fighting terrorists.
You made me laugh so hard I have tears in my eyes!! 'O Buzzard Breath'
Shades of Johnny Carson. {:-])
So are you saying that the majority of afghanis, if left alone, would have a wonderful country of peace and light? And you know what? They should resent our presence. Fuck our kids being killed by individuals they trust. They are just getting what they deserve. Right? You Marxist fuck? Go away. You are filth and I as a real human being have nothing to say to you. You are garbage.
seems you do not know the history of afghanistan - you might do some reading on the subject. go back to the 1960's as a starting point. if you have time let me know what you find out. as to troops being killed - what do you think would happen to iraqi soldiers if they were policing this country. i know that all my friends with deer rifles in western ny would not be hunting deer on their weekends off.
What do you think happened in Vietnam? Our troops were often killed by those that we trusted and trained in the SVA. If we don't want our troops killed in foreign lands, we simply should not deploy them there. Nobody wants foreign troops on their soil running the show.
Who's really F'ing our kids? The Taliban reduced opium production in Afghanistan to 10% of normal production in 2001. Within 6 months we invaded. By 2007, under the watchful eye of coalition forces, worldwide production doubled with Afghanistan providing 90% of the world's opium.
The Taliban take the profits from the opium sales and buy weapons that maim, wound and kill our guys. Our dedicated, selfless, well intentioned soldiers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, are being sold out by our leaders so that a few bastards can profit from war and resources.
http://www.economist.com/node/16432922
Our men and women in uniform are being killed in the middle east to protect access to fossil fuel. In the interest of corpoRATions. So you can go fuck yourself asshole. The middle east has many problems - and they get compounded by our governments interference to secure oil and not peace.
The fact that Israel is right in the middle of it plays a strong role too. Even stronger than the fossil fuels.
The point is our kids over there. But you can't understand that. You are filth.
The point is our kids do not belong over there, but you don't understand that do you?
You are filth. You should be protesting our presence over there to the government and calling for our men and women to be returned home.