.. IF the US goes down THEN sadly, others might too ...
.. but I will, with my very last breath, laugh (and that loudest) ...
.. I will laugh at crever-crever Chinese traders, fancy French lovers, grim German engineers, ruthless (actually near-toothless) Russian rationalists -
.. and I will laugh until I 'bust a gut;' as 'good' as laugh myself to death even, at the stupid, US-loving, US-collaborating or even merely US-tolerating everywhere, and especially at such Aussies - because all of those mentioned will have helped the US to kill our once jewel-like planet. Boo! Hiss!
(Unless one resists - to the best of their abilities, then one assists, even if only tacitly.)
We have all been sufficiently warned - but almost nobody listens.
Complete and utter eff-wit idiots, the lot.
-=*=-
Here is the reason for my apparent levity:
America Has Been Here Before
By Eric Margolis
September 20, 2009
The Toronto Sun
«"We should hang a huge neon sign over Afghanistan: "CAUTION: DEJA VU."
Afghanistan's much ballyhooed recent election staged by its foreign occupiers turned out to be a fraud wrapped up in a farce -- as this column predicted a month ago. It was as phony and meaningless as U.S.-run elections in Vietnam in the 1970s.
...
Meanwhile, American and NATO generals running the Afghan war amazingly warn they risk being beaten by Taliban tribesmen in spite of their 107,000 soldiers, B-1 heavy bombers, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Apache and AC-130 gunships, heavy artillery, tanks, radars, killer drones, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, rockets, and space surveillance.
Washington has spent some $250 billion in Afghanistan since 2001. Canada won't even reveal how many billions it has spent. Each time the U.S. sent more troops and bombed more villages, Afghan resistance sharply intensified and Taliban expanded its control, today over 55% of the country.
Now, U.S. commanders are begging for at least 40,000 more U.S. troops -- after President Barack Obama just tripled the number of American soldiers there. Shades of Vietnam-style "mission creep." Ghost of Gen. William Westmoreland, rattle your chains.
The director of U.S. national intelligence just revealed Washington spent $75 billion US last year on intelligence, employing 200,000 people. Embarrassingly, the U.S. still can't find Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar after hunting them for eight years.»
[ICH/torontosun/margolis]
Does that have the 'ring of truth' to it, or what?
Q: What the bloody hell does the US want in Afghanistan anyway?
A: Apart from hubristic Empire (+ a pipeline), not much.
-=*=-
The hubristic US has tried to defeat Marx, by removing the sheople's 'buying power;' by off-shoring, out-sourcing, down-sizing etc. - and then came the house-price swindles (recall Costello's halving of the CGT - he imported the idea) - but more than anything else, by reducing the US sheople's wages, conditions - and survival chances (impossibly expensive medicine & unaffordable 'sickness insurance' for the 'lower' 1/6th = 50mio - say.) Australia largely apes the US, as in "Monkey see, monkey do." What the US has today, Aus gets tomorrow (the voters cannot 'decide' - we're not even asked - 'bipartisanship!')
Marx predicted this failure; he said that if (when!) capitalism gets too greedy, it will kill itself off. Took a long time - but due to so-called 'élite' hubris, it's now happening.
The hubristic US has also tried to defeat history, by attacking Afghanistan (known - with good reason - as the graveyard of Empires). They (the hubristic US regime) are bleeding - as history 'turns' on them - sorely provoked; those who do not learn from history, are condemned ...
2009-09-23
IF ... THEN: (US; Afghanistan, Marx, history repeats)
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The MSM continually (mis)reports that "the Taliban" did this or that, but there are actually a number of different "insurgent" factions active in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteThe factions themselves are made up of competing commanders with differing ideologies and strategies, who nonetheless agree on one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners.
There is one faction that's led by Mullah Omar and in its core leadership positions are people who were in power before the US invasion.
There's another one run by a warlord by the name of Jalaluddin Haqqani. He and his men were allied to the US forces, but are now against the invaders.
There’s also another group led by a warlord named Hekmatyar. He was a US ally back in the '80s during the Soviet war, but has since turned against the Americans.
So when, as Eric Margolis points out, the American and NATO generals running the Afghan war "amazingly warn they risk being beaten by Taliban tribesmen", those generals are actually looking at the real prospect of their international forces being defeated by a faction riven resistence.
When will they learn that peace is not achieved through war?
more déjà vu
ReplyDelete.. been there, done that ...
.. the MSM 'slams' Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad ...
.. while they praise Obama to the sky if not beyond
-=*=-
G'day orana gelar, nice to 'see' you.
It all runs as if 'greased;' the predictable accusations of "hate & incitement." Only trouble is, they keep slagging-off the wrong targets.
They rail at Gaddafi & Ahmadinejad, but stay silent when Obama accuses Iran of A-bomb building - a lie not even tolerated by US-intel.
Otherwise, no names, no pack-drill (and no quotes; very little time available for me today and anyway, the usual suspects - like the AusBC, say - are always the same) - but the MSM should concentrate on the world's greatest terrorists (the rabid dog with the illegitimate tail; each more psychopathic than the other) - and 'they' (the corrupt & venal MSM) should not tell us lies to defend those two; IF they extend aid to criminals, THEN they make themselves equally guilty - by the accessory mechanism. Boo! Hiss!
G'day ID and Orana. Slow learners or non-learners? Perhaps, as will be seen in one of the articles below, Obama is starting to realise that Afghanistan is not "winnable". Others dfon't agree.
ReplyDeleteGabriel Kolko on the mess.
Hidden away in McChrystal's report - 500,000 over 5 years required.
And where are they coming from? I saw a report that 7 Kiwis were being sent. Well, that's a start.
Now for the possible change of mind - Dan Froomkin.
It will be a tough fight, the trap is set and their are interests and careers at stake. Tom Engelhardt - "How to Trap a President in a Losing War."
Chris Floyd follows up Tom (and Jeff Huber).
ReplyDeleteSome interesting comments - as usual.
G'day IDHolm and Bob Wall,
ReplyDeleteJust received my copy of The Monthly this afternoon and read Hugh White's comment on Afghanistan.
It contains an interesting answer to a modified form of that question:
Q: What the bloody hell does the US want in Afghanistan anyway?
The modified form:
Q: Why the bloody hell does Australia continue to be joined with the US fighting in Afghanistan?
White's answer:
"We hear four different reasons why Afghanistan's future matters so much to Australia. One is a sense of obligation to the Afghans: those who toppled the Taliban should help clean up the resulting mess. Fair enough, perhaps; but such obligations have limits and surely we have passed them. We cannot be obliged to persist indefinately in a costly, hopeless effort to do for the Afghan people what, in the end, only they can do for themselves."
"The second reason to stay in Afghanistan - the one most often cited by our leaders - is that denying the Taliban control over Afghanistan helps protect Western countries from terrorist attack. September 11 and the Bali bombings were nurtured in Afghanistan, they say, and that could happen again if the West withdrew. But minimising bases of power in Afghanistan will not significantly reduce the risk of terrorism in the future, because terrorists can easily find bases elsewhere - they already have. What happens in Afghanistan is therefore incidental to future terrorist threat: success there would not make us safe, failure would not increase the risk much, if at all."
"The third reason we are given is that success is Afghanistan is essential in fixing the problems in Pakistan. Pakistan - where Islamic extremism, weak government and nuclear weapons mix - poses much greater danger than Afghanistan. Arguably, success in Afghanistan is necessary for progress in Pakistan, but it is far from being sufficient. With or without peace in Afghanistan, we have no solution to Pakistan's problems. Indeed, the argument might better run the other way: the fact we find it so hard to fix Afghanistan suggests that we have absolutely no chance of fixing Pakistan, which has more than five times as many people."
"Finally, of course, there is the alliance. Everyone in Canberra knows that this is what Afghanistan is really about for Australia."
G'day orana and thanks for the HW. He rightly wades through the several rationalisations before getting to the core - the alliance. The "Great Protector" syndrome lives. Once it was the mother country, now it is the US. What if US power fades? China? Now, that would be ironic.
ReplyDeleteG'day Bob & orana gelar, "Everyone in Canberra knows" that not everyone in Canberra is part of the Aus-regime. Everyone in Canberra (apart from those in the regime) love to laugh about such follies. No matter; it might be better to say "Everyone who accepts the (wicked US-Empire's) pushed paradigm," but that would be too truthful - not exactly White's strategy. On the one hand, the "Great Protector" syndrome looks like a surrender of sovereignty, on the other, the 'rationalists' (not necessarily themselves rational) say "It's a must," on the grounds that Aus stands to be attacked from all sides. Silliness which would be instantly stopped in its tracks - if the UN worked as planned. Well, we know it doesn't, and that's partly what pays for such propagandists as White.
ReplyDeleteBTW, White goes on to say that "Australia's token efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have battered rather than burnished our standing in Washington." That puts paid to reason #4.
ReplyDeleteWith no valid reason for being there, the only remaining excuse, White suggests, is KRudd's need when election campaigning (Ramb-0-bama's also) to "show their national-security credentials by offsetting plans to withdraw from Iraq with strong commitment to another, less unpopular, war."
Noted - but in a friendly way, as opposed to some poor prior use. "Token efforts" are not restricted to Aus; the cry goes up almost everywhere: "US allies are not doing enough!" Must be a (good) reason, eh? Then, allow me to quote something verbatim:
ReplyDelete«Send more troops 'to remain key US ally'
4:00AM Thursday Aug 13, 2009
By Greg Ansley
Australia was an important partner for a number of unpopular American policies, during former Prime Minister John Howard's tenure, particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Photo / Getty Images
CANBERRA - Australia has been advised to increase its military commitment to Afghanistan as it slips below Washington's horizon in the new priorities of President Barack Obama's Democrat Administration.
Reflecting similar United States messages that saw New Zealand agree to send the SAS back to the deepening war against the Taleban, Canberra has been told that it is not pulling its weight and should do more.
Australia has been told that while its alliance with America remains strong, the "man of steel" bonds between former President George W. Bush and former Prime Minister John Howard have weakened.
"Absent a huge crisis in Indonesia, the Taiwan Strait or perhaps Korea, Australians are unlikely to become the key ally of the US in handling a major issue," Dr Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said.
Under Howard, Canberra was an important partner for a number of unpopular American policies, particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq.»
more...
[ICH/nzherald]
Me: Vassal states must toe the line; any non-complying get the "Iraq-treatment."
Note that in the estimation above, Aus might rise in US eyes, if some threat *TO THE US* arose in our backyard. Too bad if the Indons attacked us, say - if the US didn't see 'self-interest,' we'd presumably be allowed to go down.
My last unnecessarily provocative? Well perhaps, but the article does go on to say "He said other countries had stronger claims on Obama's time and, for the first time, a US President had stronger ties to Indonesia than to Canberra."
ReplyDeleteIt is, of course, all a bit silly - we were supposed to have 'gotten over' war with the end of WW2. Obviously not so; Empires don't 'do' justice.