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March 14, 2012 at 10:00 AM
How To Leave Afghanistan

How to get out of Afghanistan, without leaving a catastrophe behind. The pressure is rising.

An Afghan soldier speaks to civilians gathered outside a military base in Panjwai, Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 11, 2012. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says a U.S. service member has killed more than a dozen people in a shooting including nine children and three women. Karzai called the attack Sunday "an assassination" and demanded an explanation from the United States. He says several people were also wounded in the attack on two villages near a U.S. base in the southern province of Kandahar. (AP)An Afghan soldier speaks to civilians gathered outside a military base in Panjwai, Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 11, 2012. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says a U.S. service member has killed more than a dozen people in a shooting including nine children and three women. Karzai called the attack Sunday "an assassination" and demanded an explanation from the United States. He says several people were also wounded in the attack on two villages near a U.S. base in the southern province of Kandahar. (AP)

An Afghan soldier speaks to civilians gathered outside a military base in Panjwai, Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 11, 2012. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says a U.S. service member has killed more than a dozen people in a shooting including nine children and three women. Karzai called the attack Sunday "an assassination" and demanded an explanation from the United States. He says several people were also wounded in the attack on two villages near a U.S. base in the southern province of Kandahar. (AP)

Surveillance video out of Afghanistan shows the US soldier who allegedly shot sixteen Afghan villagers on Sunday walking back up to his base after the killings, laying down his weapon, and raising his arms in surrender.  A sad image.  Tragic.  But that’s the urge a lot of Americans are sharing on Afghanistan.

Lay down the weapons.  Come home.  Now.  Newt Gingrich says the war is “un-doable”.  President Obama says let’s be steady.  The threat is disaster after withdrawal.  Taliban.  Civil war.

This hour, On Point:  How to get out of Afghanistan without leaving a catastrophe behind.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Laura King, Los Angeles Times Kabul bureau chief.

Ahmed Rashid, journalist and commentator. He’s author of the new book “Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.”

Thomas Johnson, director of the Program for Culture & Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School. Back in 2009, Johnson co-wrote an op-ed imagining a fictional and messy end of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

Jim McGovern, a congressman representing the Massachusetts third Congressional district.

From Tom’s Reading List

Slate “The game is over in Afghanistan. An American presence can no longer serve any purpose. Or, rather, it can only extend and exacerbate the pathologies of this war. It is time to get out, and more quickly than President Obama had been planning. The consequences of leaving may be grim, but the consequences of staying are probably grimmer.”

The New York Times “The outrage from the back-to-back episodes of the Koran burning and the killing on Sunday of at least 16 Afghan civilians imperils what the Obama administration once saw as an orderly plan for 2012: to speed the training of Afghan forces so that they can take the lead in combat missions, all while drawing the Taliban into negotiations to end more than a decade of constant war. ”

Foreign Policy “Afghanistan policy is in crisis, at least in the United States. With Osama bin Laden now dead, some are wondering whether it’s time to declare this mission accomplished — or with Afghanistan so troubled, perhaps it’s mission impossible? In fact, it is mission incomplete: The Afghanistan mission is going worse than we had all hoped, but better than many understand. With patience and perseverance, we can still struggle to a tolerable outcome.”

Mentioned On-air

A caller on the show today mentioned this article written by her son, a Marine just back from service in Afghanistan.

 
  • Michiganjf

    It’s much too late to exit Afghanistan “without leaving a catastrophe behind.”
    One has to be deaf, dumb, blind, and especially utterly ignorant of the obvious to think any such occupation wouldn’t end uselessly and/or in catastrophe.

    Has any occupation by any country gone any differently since the Marshall Plan? Not a hard call.

    “The absolutely singular goal of any counter-insurgency is to win the hearts and minds of neutral locals…” every action has this goal as the ultimate aim.

    Our methods of recruiting, and the shear number of personnel, ensure that just enough psychopaths or idiots will end up in the military, armed and in direct contact with the locals of any occupied country or city… just enough to do something stupid and lose the all-important goal. There’s simply no way in Hell the best intentions won’t get botched again and again.

    Meanwhile, all those hearts and minds are caught between the violence of the insurgents and the occupiers… occupiers of whom the invaded are naturally wary before any anticipated occupation even begins.

    It’s criminally stupid for the United States to maintain a military presence in any Middle East country, whether we’re “welcomed” by a handful of foreign officials or not.
    There’s simply NO CHANCE that an occupation will ever end well in the modern world, for the occupiers or the occupied.

    Get us out of the Middle East… we’ll save trillions, which will more than balance out having to pay the legitimate market price for oil.

    If President Obama can accelerate our exit from Afghanistan, he should do it.
    At the very least, President Obama intends to stick to the Bush withdrawal date… contrary to what the idiotic Republican candidates propose.

    Exit is the ONLY sane option left… or you can vote Republican, we can stay, and we may even invite Iran to the party.
    Say goodbye to what’s left of America!

    • Paolocaru

      Unfortunately, the “neoconservative” psychopaths are still operating in the background, controlling congress and the media, with their PNAC plan.  Libya is accomplished (left fractured)  now its time to leave Afghanistan, Syria and Iran in shambles….if they can. 

  • Zero

    The only thing embarrassing about getting out of Vietnam was not doing it sooner.  America needs to forget our pride and forget our ego; this war has become pointless. 

    • Joshua Hendrickson

      I agree; unfortunately, pride and ego are about all America has left, apart from its toys.

    • http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

      Amen. The only phrase I disagree with is “has become.” It always was pointless, or, the point was questionable.

      Had we just targeted al qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere I think we’d be in a better place right now.

  • U.S. Vet.

    I don’t see the U.S. leaving Afghanistan since American foreign policy is now based on maintaining U.S. world hegemony and controlling Middle East oil.

    • Cory, Lord of the Nerds

      I hate it that what you say is undeniably true.

    • Jasoturner

      Were the U.S. still a hegemon I would agree.  But we are no longer rich enough or politically united enough to sustain such an effort.  We will leave Afghanistan, just as other empires before us have:  without victory.  And Middle East oil will flow to the global marketplace, enriching those rulers who do nothing to enrich the lives of their “citizens” in return.  It is an unpleasantly volatile situation.  One wonders, when Israel gets around to air strikes in Iran, what might happen.  Nothing good, for sure.

    • Anonymous

      Except for the fact that Afghanistan is not in the Middle East and has no baring on the flow of oil from that region, our only reason for being there is due to terrorism. We went to Afghanistan to go after the Taliban and al-Qaeda.It is complicated, being that Pakistan and Iran have influence in the area. Pakistan more so than Iran, but nonetheless how this region has any baring on the Middle East and oil seems a bit far fetched. Look at a map of the region and you get a better idea of the demographics.

      • Robert Riversong

        First, we must remember that the Bush administration wanted to use the 9/11 (false flag?) attacks to invade Iraq, but decided that would be too hard a sell to the public and instead put Iraq on hold a bit while we went after bin Laden (whom Bush later said he didn’t give a damn about and never bothered finding).

        Second, prior to our invasion, UNOCAL was negotiating with the Taliban for a pipeline route through Afghanistan. The negotiations broke down and UNOCAL told our government that they would not re-start negotiations until the Taliban were gone. Then, coincidentally, we invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban (not al Qaeda or bin Laden).

        Third, that pipeline is being constructed, most US military bases are staged along its route, and its scheduled completion date just happens to correspond with the US scheduled withdrawal date.

        No connection to fossil fuels? US foreign policy has centered around petroleum since 1933 when the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, later called the Arab American Company (ARAMCO) began oil exploration in Saudi Arabia.

        • Anonymous

          Well, I doubt that pipeline will ever be finished or be used given that Afghanistan is pretty much ungovernable.
          The US and NATO cannot guard the entire pipeline even if it was finished. It comes down to the cost of protecting these assets and I don’t see how staying there can be done without a huge political cost to whomever is in the White House. The Europeans don’t have the stomach for staying in the region nor can they afford it. Neither can we.

          I bet China is going to get involved as is Russia, being that the oil is going to come from their neck of the woods so to speak.

  • Paolo

    I see the people in Boston’s Back Bay are freaking out with only one night of electricity loss.   Now perhaps they can understand how the Iraqis feel since the US invasion destroyed their infrastructure.

  • Paolo

    So far we here this guy is 38, has two kids, is in the Army for 11 years, at Fort Lewis…   SO WHAT’S HIS NAME ???    And who were the other guys with him??    This look like another Osama switcheroo ” we dumped him in the ocean overnight” routine.

    This is why nobody trusts the USA and their media (the BBC is worse with their endless ranting for Syria).   I would not be surprised if this one guy is “suicided”.

  • JustSayin

    What is the post Bin Laden mission?

    From here in the US we are told that we must rebuild Afghanistan into a modern democracy modeled on???

    Could it be more about bases for watching and attacking Iran, than it is about Afghanistan or Pakistan?

    • Hidan

       Bingo.

      The Humanitarian claims are just another excuse to stay, the U.S. doesn’t care about womens rights there or building a democracy.

      If it did it wouldn’t ignore the House of Saud like it does which are far worst than the Taliban.

      • Anonymous

        Actually (though I agree with the spirit of your comment!), there are foreign workers in Kabul and beyond doing a lot of good.  What if we got our butts out of there but set aside the cost of an additional 12 months military presence in Afghanistan for use by medical, educational, and technical experts (of all nationalities) to help the Afghanis recover much of what they lost to the Taliban and to a series of invasions. 

        Without trying to convert them to our way of life. (Underlined.)

  • Cory, Lord of the Nerds

    Pack up right away….  AND LEAVE!!!

    Let’s be unconventional and reject the bullshine that we “can’t leave too fast”, or that we are worried about what we leave behind.  I don’t care who rules Afghanistan, I don’t care if their children have schools, and I don’t much care about the state of women’s rights there.  It is a backward stinkhole that we cannot fix.  Call a mistake a mistake, and let’s not waste one dollar or life more than we already have. 

    • Hidan

       U.S. admitting to a mistake? you must have lost it. Don’t you know the only way to go is to double down.

       That’s why COIN was developed to hide such mistakes.

    • Modavations

      Did you look up the word Chato

    • Robert Riversong

      A “backward stinkhole”? Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation there from as far back as 50,000 BCE. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3,000 to 2,000 BCE.

      If Afghanistan’s cultural evolution has been turned “backwards”, it’s only because of repeated invasions from the likes of Alexander the Great, Chandragupta Maurya, Genghis Khan, the Soviet Union, and NATO (i.e. US).

      Afghanistan has existed in its current form since 1709 with the rise of the Pashtuns, and as such is an older nation than its current occupier. These are a proud and fierce people with strong tribal loyalty and they look “backward” only from the vantage point of the most avaricious and destructive culture on earth: American.

  • GradyLeeHoward

    Following this last incident the real estate value of any property near any military base here or overseas dropped.

    • Modavations

      Is there a fund I can donate to ,that will speed you on your way to Switzerland.I hope you understand that racists are undersirable in Zurich.Hundie Watts.

      • Hidan

        So no moda in Zurich than?

        • Modavations

          Listen dude,I’m the real deal.You’re a Capo

  • Hidan

    Face it folks the Afgan’s don’t want the U.S. occupying them and no matter the spin and propaganda the Military, our Politicians and the experts(who happen to have a stake in staying) can’t hide this. 

  • Hidan

    Blue Scholars
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En8DwCeKa6M

    We say bring ‘em back home,
    For my brothas and my sistas who’ve been gone too long
    We say bring ‘em back home, and I don’t wanna have to keep on singin’ this song
    We say bring ‘em back home, for my brothas and my sistas who’ve been gone too long we say
    Bring ‘em back home, and I don’t wanna have to keep on singin’ this song

    And somewhere a soldier kissed his family goodbye
    And he was walking like a warrior the water in his eyes
    He left in late September said he’ll be back in July
    Now the child is asking mommy “Why did daddy have to die?”
    She says he fought for freedom, but she knows it’s just a lie
    ‘Cause her father was a veteran with benefits denied
    Now the fire in her eyes burn brighter with the passin’ of the minutes into hours and the hours into days and
    Days turned to night, nights turned to face the other way
    One sister strong holding down the whole family
    It’s just one in over three thousand casualties and back home we battle with the apathy
    We chantin’ now

    So next time you see recruiters in your school or your crib
    Tell ‘em thank you for the offer but you’d rather you lived
    We got more than just our bodies to offer
    So fck a coffin wrapped in red, white, and blue, withdraw passed due
    We disgusted with the fact we pay taxes to build tanks
    Still dropping one twomp and a half to fill tanks
    Got a china-mans chance to fill banks like Phil Banks
    For soldiers in the future givin’ thanks in advance we say

  • Josh-mcdonald

    Just slip out the back, Jack.
    Make a new plan, Stan.
    Don’t need to be coy, Roy,
    Just listen to me.
    Hop on the bus, Gus.
    Don’t need to discuss much;
    Just drop off the key, Lee,
    And set yourself free.

    • Modavations

      Normally I consider this stuff tripe,however this is spot on.Righteous!!!

  • Hidan

    Some of the excuses to stay are priceless.

    - Yes the majority don’t want us there but actually they really do(other words polls only matter when it’s in our favor)
    -We must stay cause it we leave it empowers the Taliban(in otherwords stay indefinite period of time)
    - We must stay to rebuild the country into a democracy(granted the same people saying this are the ones fighting against rebuilding the U.S. infrastructure)
    -We must stay cause the Karzai Government are banning the use of Military contractors (as if having armed Merc’s that don’t have to follow the law in Afghanistan is a good thing.)
    -We care about womens rights and must stay until there equal(yep one can tell with the way they ignore women rights in one of the most repressive society such as Saudi Arabia)

    The #1 priceless excuse so far

    - We must stay cause if we withdraw troops the unemployment rate will go up. (it cost 1 million dollars to support each soilder in Afghanistan)

    • BHA in Vermont

       You are saying it costs 100 TRILLION dollars to support the 100K troops in Afghanistan?

  • Modavations

    Drill baby drill and pull all troops from the mideast immediately.Let the Europeans police there own sphere of influence.When the US is running on all cylinders we export 8-10%.We’ve always exported 8-10%In other words,we don’t need the rest of the world.Our internal market dwarfs all.

  • Jasoturner

    Special forces and signals intelligence should be sufficient to continue disrupting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  The occupation, at this point, is needed only to buy time as we train local security forces to maintain order.  I would say that pulling out the troops without providing the Afghans with a means of maintaining civic order is morally unacceptable, though perhaps our overall footprint can be significantly reduced.

    An open-ended occupation of the country is clearly not possible or desirable.

    That said, it is not our country.  We also need to talk to the power players in Afghanistan to see what they think the end game should be.  God knows, the imposition of our own “game plan” was a fiasco in Iraq and probably led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.  Let’s hope we are a little less arrogant this time around and try to forge a path forward with our ostensible partner.  And if that includes talking with the Taliban, then we have to man up and do it.

    • Modavations

      Alexander the Great said screw em,Modarationalist says screw em.This is a European sphere.If it’s really essential,they’ll step in.If we develop our own energy sources(absolutely everything even windmills),we can turn our backs.I predict they’ll be petitioning Wash.with their beggar bowls in two secs.

      • Jasoturner

        I am pleased that you embrace President Obama’s and Energy Secretary Chu’s national goal of energy independence.  As long as good citizens such as yourself continue to support our Commander in Chief, we have a fighting chance.

        • Modavations

          I’m a real rationalist!!!!No man,no party is my master

          • Jasoturner

            Ah, then we are in accord!  I too evaluate situations and actions on the merits, without regard to the ideological breezes of the day that bother me not a whit.  As you say, ideas, not party or man, must reign supreme.  Well done.

          • Modavations

            I trust you know the vast majority will be oil, natural gas and Nukes.I envision combustion engines that get 100 mpg..All my mates have diesels in Europe.They get 45 mpg…These are Audis,BMW’s etc,. not the little clown cars.They’re so silent the E.U.demanded they introduce noise, as people were getting run over when stepping into the street.Even though I lived in Joburg(they drive on the wrong side of the street)I still always look the wrong way

          • BHA in Vermont

             They are cars of all makes and diesels are the vast majority – because the tax on gasoline is a LOT higher then the tax on diesel to financially incent people to drive cars that use less fuel. They are not “clown cars” but on the whole, they are MUCH smaller than cars in the USA. A car here that is on the smaller end of “midsize” is a large car in Europe.

            And no diesel is so quiet that the E.U. has demanded they make extra noise. That little bit of stupidity is meant for Electric Vehicles. I have had plenty of people mindlessly and obliviously walking through a parking lot in front of my Prius while the engine was running.

             I was once in my Mazda 626 about to pull out of a parking space when a friend came by. After talking a few minutes he quizzically asked “Is the engine running?”.  Yep, the 2.0L gas engine idling away was nearly silent. Rolling tire noise, not the engine, is what people hear when cars travel at low speed (unless there are little boys around with their fart can mufflers). Tire and wind noise are by far more noticeable at higher speeds as well.

          • Modavations

            Oh bull.They pay 8 euro a gallon in Bologna.Their gallon is 25% larger.They are the same size as BMW’s and Audis in the US.They roar!!!Friggin Gaiaist propaganda.I’m in Bologna,Berlin and London every Sept.You want us on horseback

          • Modavations

            See above

          • Modavations

            Just called Antwerp.The Diesel Audis are the same size as our gas Diesels.Diesel is 1.49 euro liter and Benzene is 1.76 liter.You use 7 liters Diesel for a 100km and 10 liters gas.The Diesels are cleaner and have higher resale.They all have them.He said my cousin’s tale of adding artificial sound to the Diesel is bull.Once both engines are warm, they sound the same.My cuz in Italy will be calling soon.Will report further

    • ana

      Thank you for such a rational, intelligent and humane response.  If only there were such as you in leadership positions.

    • nj_v2

      As if “maintaining order” were solely dependent on trained security forces and had nothing to do with a functioning infrastructure, economy, and civic institutions.

      Who are we kidding?

      • Modavations

        Ahh shut up.You’re such a perpetual bummer.This guy hasn’t laughed in 29 years

        • nj_v2

          What a sad, contemptible, little man you are.

      • Jasoturner

        It is not sufficient, but it is a necessary prerequisite, no?  And one that American forces can legitimately help with.  Thus, a moral argument could be made that this effort would be appropriate.

        We cannot build the perfect beast over there, but  I am not sure that justifies throwing up our hands and packing it in, either.

    • Robert Riversong

      Jasoturner (rationalist?): “pulling out the troops without providing the Afghans with a means of maintaining civic order is morally unacceptable.”

      If you were a moralist, rather than so damn “rational” you might acknowledge that there never was a moral justification for being in Afghanistan (there never is a moral justification for invasion and occupation of a non-belligerant nation).

      To enter another’s land, destroy the infrastructure and undermine the ancient local culture, and then claim a moral mandate to stay until what is broken is fixed (to our own specifications, of course) – is neither moral nor particularly rational, especially in a nation which has not tolerated foreign occupation for 2,000 years.

      It is, however, as with all military campaigns, self-serving and self-justifying.

      • Jasoturner

        I never claimed it was moral to start with.  I’m saying that we have forced ourselves into a position where one could plausibly argue that we have a moral obligation now.  Even if I was protesting in the streets against going into Afghanistan originally, that has no bearing one way or another whether we should just walk away today.

        Also, I explicitly said we cannot shape a foreign country to our own specifications.  Perhaps you are referring to someone else post.

        Lastly, I feel that my position is completely rational.  I never asserted there was a moral justification for invading.  To conclude that is to misread what I wrote.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    iOnePoint:

    Extreme weather Phenomenon last night in western Mass.

  • X-Ray

    How to leave Afghanistan? Pack up and leave, now. Don’t even bother with a, “By
    your leave.” We have no national interests there. They don’t want us there. They
    will never have a pro-Western view. And “nation building” by the military is
    like using a wrecking ball to build a house.

    • BHA in Vermont

       We screwed the Afghans decades ago with our always fails “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” foreign policy. We backed ANYONE who was the enemy of the Soviet Union pretty much from WWII on, thus the Taliban was born from the Mujaheddin we supported. When the Russians left, so did we and the monster we helped create took over. Bin Laden and al Qaeda had a home in Afghanistan BECAUSE the Taliban was running the country.

      So, no, you can’t just cut and run AGAIN.
      I know … it sucks.

      • Robert Riversong

        We either admit failure and leave or we remain there forever. There is no middle ground. We have created a failed state that is almost completely reliant on US money. 

        We plan to remain until 2014 only to allow the completion of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline.

        ‘Since the US-led offensive that ousted the Taliban from power,’ reported Forbes in 2005, “the project has been revived and drawn strong US support” as it would allow the Central Asian republics to export energy to Western markets “without relying on Russian routes”.

  • Curtis Jasa

    The fastest way to get our troops out of Afghanistan is for our government to accept and admit to the US population it was a mistake to put so many troops on the ground with so little to win. This will tilt the public opinion to getting out before 2014.

    • Jasoturner

      No, that fastest way would be to make it law that all children of those serving in congress must serve in active duty if eligible.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    iOnePoint:

    Filipino worker Meran Prieia Montezor was killed in Homs, Syria. The Philippine government is neutral in the conflict going on in Syria for thousands of Filipino workers are at stake in losing their jobs.

  • BHA in Vermont

    As horrendous as this individual soldier’s action was, I find it quite bizarre that the Taliban, who have killed innumerable civilians, are all hot about one rogue American killing 16 civilians. 

    I guess it is OK for the Taliban to wantonly murder civilians for years but 1 action by 1 American is cause for retribution.

    Even in Afghanistan, it is all about politics.

  • Mike Paquette

    I see it as a problem with miltary command where a soldier can walk off base, without being confronted, and continue into a civilian neighborhood.

    Wasn’t there peremiter gaurds to the military post?

  • TFRX

    What does this discussion need? More sound clips from Newwwwwwwwwt Gingrich, Psuuuuuuuuuedo intelllectual.

  • RC

    Why do we have troops on the ground in Afghanistan anyway? Our goal seems to be the assignation of terrorist leaders, which is why we have drones, the CIA and Navy Seals.

  • RC

    that’s *assassination, not assignation.

  • Rich

    I heard this soldier has a brain injury from past tours of duty. Why is he serving on a battle front with a brain injury????

    AND why is Obama, his commander in chief selling him down the tubes if in fact he has a brain injury????

    Is that how he takes care of our veterans????

    The troop who served several tours honorably before this tour should have been home under medical care/watch NOT ON A BATTLE FRONT. How did they even have a clue if his brain was functioning NORMALLY????

    Obama owns this as commander in chief and needs to start doing his job in that position and start taking BETTER CARE OF OUR PROUD VETERANS!!!!

    • Robert Riversong

      He is merely one of thousands who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. He was evaluated by military medical and psychological personnel and determined fit for duty. 

      The Commander-in-Chief had nothing to do with that decision.

  • nj_v2

    Add to the “reading list”…

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/13/systemic-atrocity-afghanistan-occupation

    The systemic atrocity of Afghanistan’s occupationIs there a morally significant difference between murder, like the Panjwai massacre, and collateral damage? Ask Afghan civilians

    • Robert Riversong

      “A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn’t have an air force.” – William Blum

  • Jim

    I am A Vietnam vet, get out of Afghanistan tomorrow. 

    • Modavations

      I’m a Vietnam Draft Dodger and I say get out

      • Brett

        I worked at a golf course on a Marine Corps base when I was a teenager, and I say get out! 

  • Anonymous

    We should have aided the Soviets.  I miss having a sane godless enemy compared to the religious nuts we are dealing with now. 

  • Bruce

     Letter to Afghanistan:

    We’re sorry.  We tried to fix your society but it can’t be done from the outside and we should have known that.  We are sorry.  You can now go back to killing each other, subjecting your women and turning them into the uneducated slaves you desire, beating them and killing them, and praying 5 times a day. Sorry.  We’ve got our own problems as you have pointed out and as the last episode of civilian killing by one of ours so clearly illustrates.  We are sorry.  Good luck with the Talliban rule… and by the way most of us really did want to help.

     

    • Robert Riversong

      Of course. We’re always the well-intentioned good guys trying to make “backwards” people forward-thinking like the good ole US of A.

  • JM

    We don’t care anymore!  Just get out.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XJMNTQ6EKSBKA6SHI3WZNRUKFI ChristyS

    Dear Americans — It was not a democratic President who got us in to these wars — it was Republican George Bush that put us in these countries and ran up the debt.  Why doesn’t the GOP admit to this?  President Obama is doing his best to clean up the messes he inherited from George Bush!

    I agree with Bruce below. We did really want to help. I’m sorry for what has happened. Please let us get out.

    • Modavations

      Read all the Dems beating the drum for war.Mr Tenant,Pres.Clintons CIA guy said ,it’s a slam dunk Mr.Pres…But that’s old nsws and you know all about it.Just trying to score political points.Or is it civil war you secretly propose

    • MaryJ

      Are you insane or just so bias you can’t think or see straight?
      Afghanistan is Obama’s and only Obama’s. He is the one trying to nation build. This is the type of thinking that is why the country is in such a mess.
      Here’s a good article for hypocrites like you.

      http://www.mediaite.com/online/is-the-media-giving-president-obama-a-pass-on-continuing-bush-era-policies/ 

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        MaryJ she’s not insane she’s absolutely right.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sarah.rochemahdi Sarah Roche-Mahdi

    We never should have gone to Afghanistan. We have squandered untold billions of $$ badly needed at home, endangered our own security; we have inflicted untold suffering on the people–especially the women (Malalai Joys has made this clear, which is why she was at first denied a visa to the USA), whom we claim to be helping. We are causing a catastrophe by being there. Karzai’s government is corrupt, the Taliban are recruited from those who have nothing to lose and would fight any invading/occupying force. Get out now.

    • Modavations

      bETWEEN iRAQ AND Afghan it’s 70billion a year.This year alone we will spend 457billion on interest on the debt.Not 457bill.in ten years.This year alone.

  • ML

    We should have a national conversation about what might bring American soldiers to the brink of madness
    Here is an interesting article , unfortunately in French, underlining the problem:
    http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2012/03/12/soldats-americains-et-francais-sont-ils-egaux-face-aux-petages-de-plomb_1656818_3216.html#ens_id=1191850

  • adk newt

    adknewt-
    Staying is impossible.
    Just pulling out leads to catastrophe.
    So-
    1. Establish a fall back position in northern and western parts of the country, and Kabul. Taliban is weak there, locals a bit more reliable. Maybe 30,000 US-Allied Troops, special ops, CIA in contested areas.  Establish agents there

    2. Wait for Taliban to come out an take control in contested areas

    3. Kill them, with raids and drones, and spies, and maybe a few suicide bombers of our own, until they feel our pain, and mayber make a deal.

    4. This may take a long time, but it is tenable, and can work. Nothing else can

     

  • Anonymous

    Good luck getting anyone to ever enlist again if we turn over a soldier to be beheaded by savages instead of subjecting him to American justice. 

    • Robert Riversong

      Like we subjected US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son to American justice? Was that any less savage than a beheading (which was a standard form of capital punishment in civilized Europe)?

      • Anonymous

        He was a combatant and taken out by the military (I don’t know enough to comment about the son).  A trial wouldn’t have ended in their beheading.  Civilized Europe no longer practices capital punishment and the civilized states also don’t. 

    • Fredlinskip

       How bout the American justice policy of “extraordinary rendition” That’s here we jump people in whatever country (including ours) throw them with bag over their head on a plane and turn them over to countries where they’re subjected to the least civilized forms of interrogation techniques.

        

  • Guest

    Settle it all on the pitch with a “friendly” Afghan vs USA futbol match!

    • Robert Riversong

      Except they play futbol and we play football. We’d never agree on the game.

  • Janice Stearns

    George W. got sidetracked by going into Iraq and let Afghanistan go to blazes.  We ignored it for the entire Bush presidency so we could go get Sadam.  Declare victory and bring ‘em home.

    • Robert Riversong

      Sidetracked? Bush and Cheney had planned to invade Iraq since well before their election, as spelled out in their Rebuilding American Defenses paper of the Project for a New American Century.

      They had little choice, however, but to get “sidetracked” into Afghanistan because it was just too hard to convince even ignorant Americans that Saddam had been responsible for 9/11.

      • Fredlinskip

         How come you don’t let people rewrite history as fits their mood? You and your facts are no fun at all.

  • OH YEAH

    War is terrible? That’s the justification used to rationalize away this man’s actions?  Good thing we’re not at war in Afghanistan.  

  • Dan M.

    Indeed, how to do the righteous goal?,and Why do you,our old Greyhairs who send Our young and willing soldiers,sailors and airmen and women of the USA, to Save the Rest of the World. Never break  your eggs, unless you know the best way to make the omelette,and that We can live with the ingredients….

    • Robert Riversong

      US military strategy has never been about Saving the Rest of the World. But we engage in these serial acts of aggression because Americans are so historically and politically ignorant and unsophisticated that they actually believe such nonsense.

  • Bgfiend

    Some moron made a suggestion this morning that the staff sergeant charged with killing a dozen or more Afghanis be turned over to the Afghans for execution.  Let’s have the President of the U.S. suggest this sort of solution – a slightly more than typical Obama apology.  Then we can assure Obama’s retirement, gather a wider spread U.S. popular demand for a withdrawal from a blood and treasure drain that the natives do not want. And then let’s get Obama to demand that the Afghan president, Kharzi, find the stillliving men who killed half a dozen Americans in some sort of idiotic protest about religious books being burned by mistake. Let’s set up a guillotine in downtown Kabul… WACKO….

    • OH YEAH

      He wasn’t acting in official capacity as a soldier at the time.  Why shouldn’t we turn over a man, acting as a civilian, for mass-murder in a foreign country to the local authorities?  To keep him within our own justice system implies that he was acting under orders.  Our military should make the distinction that the USMCJ won’t necessarily protect our soldiers who are acting outside of orders while deployed.  Consequences, you know.  By sacrificing this man’s life, we may potentially save hundreds of more-deserving US Soldier’s lives.

  • Objeta

    Just writing to support Patricia’s comment (the caller with the son who spoke out on the front page of the newspaper) that this whole war should be on trial. From the beginning (October 7, 2002), it seemed to me like a gigantic waste to bomb a country that was already wasteland after decades of war, when our enemy was an international terrorist network (weren’t most of the 9/11 hijackers Saudis?  And, of course, NONE were Iraqis). These wars have been a stupid lie all along, and Americans have completely HAD IT.

    • Tina

      Objeta, It seems like we have agreed for a decade now! After 9/11 I thought that we should have sent care packages over Afghanistan.  I don’t know if you would have agreed with that, but short of getting rid of the individual or the few madmen who can spin an entire military off key, war does not work.  Right now, we are witnessing the propaganda machine called Fox news raging people “up”.  We should fight against such spin and propaganda and always fight against the madmen, but send the young people of the world off into their own neighborhoods to help teach, repair, construct, invent, and repair and inspire our spirits thru the arts,rather than to fight, often civilians, but even other young people of the world.  We may not agree along my whole trajectory, I know.  

      • Objeta

        Dear Tina,

        I absolutely agree with you. I have been protesting these wars since they started, In fact, I protested against the Bush Administration during their first visit to NYC before 9/11 (when Bush was so afraid of New Yorkers that he landed on Ellis Island and was shuttled by a secret tunnel into Saint Ptarick’s Cathedral!). Anyway, the United States should have helped rebuild Afghanistan when it really could have helped: after the Afghans, with US assistance, threw the Russians out in 1989. Imagine the difference if the US had not simply pulled out then, and instead helped the Afghans rebuild their country, before the Taliban had a chance to take over? And, to another writer who asked what Americans really care about the Afghans an Iraqis: I know I care. I think about the dead and displaced every day. This has been ten years of wasted life and treasure. I will never get over my anger about this. I knew, ON 9/11, that the US response under Bush would be a disaster.

        • Robert Riversong

          Bush, Obama, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan – US foreign policy has been consistently immoral   under every administration, and has never been about anything other than American “strategic interests” and “making the world safe for democracy (i.e. US corporate capitalism).

          Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler knew this after a 33-year military career (1898-1931) as a “gangster for capitalism”.

          • Modavations

            Hey Mr.Gum Flapper,you make Crack Heads look like tortoises

          • Fredlinskip

            Kinda thought Clinton’s decision to intervene in Serbian/Albanian conflict a good one (although it could have happened a bit sooner).
            But would whole-heartedly agree, “good Wars” are few and far between.

  • EileenKoesy

    Your Democratic Congressman from Mass. said it all.  It’s time to go.  We’ve lost their hearts & minds, if we had many at all.  “We are paying a heavy, heavy price” and listed all the reasons. Now. Now.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      We never had their hearts and minds. Any statements to the contrary are lies or delusional thinking based on criminal Republican propaganda.

  • MarkVII88

    How many listeners to the show today honestly care at all about Afghanistan, other than getting our soldiers home, given the domestic issues going on in the US right now?  After Bin Laden was taken out last year, how many people really cared at all about Afghanistan?  Really?

  • Tlyell

    I could not agree more with the caller who said this man needs help not simply punishment (though he surely needs this too). Throwing him to a mob is acknowledging the lowest of the human instinct.
    Revenge is neither justice nor any kind of solution.

    • OH YEAH

      He doesn’t need help.  He needs to pay for his crimes against humanity.  Those brown creatures in Afghanistan are living, breathing, thinking human beings and he callously, cruelly exterminated 16 of them, as if they were insects.  The only help I could recommend is the type of help that allows him to genuinely realize the magnitude of his crimes before he is relegated to eternal sleep.     

      • Alan in NH

        Wouldn’t you like to know who among this soldier’s superior officers said o.k. to his continued service in the Armed Forces after sustaining a traumatic brain injury? I’ve worked with students who have sustained TBI. It changes their personalities. It affects their ability to reason. Who said this guy was still able to function?

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

        The US government BROKE this man. The US military command BROKE this man. It is our corrupt leadership who should pay the price of his deeds. George Bush should be tried as the criminal he is.

        And please…drop the PC nonsense about the “brown creatures” …what crap!

    • Robert Riversong

      “Revenge is neither justice nor any kind of solution.”
      And just what is US capital punishment if not revenge? 

      • Modavations

        In 2006 WHO said the DDT science was phoney.They said start using DDt  immediately.No need to reply,but look at all the blood on your hands.Oh,I forgot it was only 5 million black African that died.They’re black guys,what’s that compared to saving the Bald Eagle(that was bull also)

    • Fredlinskip

       Weren’t conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, when you get past all the supposed “justified reasons” for War been

         ALL ABOUT SATIFIYING AMERICA’ S “LOWEST OF HUMAN INSTINCTS”- THE CONCEPT OF REVENGE??

      Perhaps the ultimate problem- Because we entered these Wars for reasons of revenge, the resulting “solution” you refer to, has been much less than satisfactory

  • Tina

    Thank you to the caller, Patricia, perhaps her name was, the mother of a young man who just returned from Afghanistan.  Thank you so much for all your thoughts, Patricia.  After her call, the Congressman who spoke was also clear … clear … clear.  

  • BHA in Vermont

    We went in because the illegal Taliban government, recognized by ONLY Pakistan (from whence they came) Saudi Arabia and the UAE) wouldn’t give up Bin Laden. We stayed to hunt Bin Laden and return control of the country to the people from the terror of the Taliban. Then GWB looked west and we lost whatever foothold we had against the Taliban. 

    Can the non Taliban Afghans keep control of their country when we leave? I have no idea. If the Taliban takes control again .. we all know what will happen. A quagmire for sure.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      You are dreaming. That was NOT what Dear Leader George Bush told us at the time. Of course, our “mission” has changed almost yearly. Further demonstrating the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American “leadership”.

    • Robert Riversong

      Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over
      Guardian.co.uk, Sunday 14 October 2001
      Taliban demand evidence of Bin Laden’s guilt

      President George Bush rejected as “non-negotiable” an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan. He added, “There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty”.

      The FBI acknowledged that they had no substantive evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11. Bush later declared bin Laden to be “irrelevant” as he shifted his focus to Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

      • Modavations

        Bill Clinton knew where he was.CIA said should we zapo him.Clinton said no

  • Anna

    ‘Our strategy’ now in Afghanistan, is like it was in Irag — give taxpayer money to the ‘military-industrial complex’ which has our government by the short hairs…in fact is our gov’t these days (with Citizens United). When, oh when, will Americans wake up?
    The whole thing is a sickening tragedy. I been giving money through Women for Women to Afghani women…what do you think their fate will be once the Taliban and the Civil War takes on a ferocious control. With the corruption from 

    So glad that Obama and Cameron can make their little jokes about setting the White House on fire. This country and it’s allies are SOAKED with corruption at the core. Obama is a sell out, yet far better than the alternative….for the reason of the Supreme Court, if nothing else…

    The news is making me almost ill — between Syria and Afghanistan….and these Republican votes going for people who don’t believe in science, the Constitution, marriage between the races (see the poll on Huffington Post)…or get the world situation and the US position & economy. 

    When will we get that the 1%…of top 5% are pulling our strings, killing our soldiers and driving them mad, waving the flag and stealing our future???  It’s hard to hold onto hope. But for our children’s sake — we MUST wake up. 

    • Robert Riversong

      “Obama is a sell out”

      Obama never sold out, he merely bought in to the American power structure, as every president must.

      This is not about Obama or Bush. It’s about the core values of American culture. “We have met the enemy and he is us”.

  • Martha

    Thanks to my Congressman Jim McGovern for speaking out. 

  • Monica Roland

    Time to leave Afghanistan, for sure.  Did we defeat Al Quaida there?  Yes.  Did we liberate the women from total oppression? Yes.  Did we give Afghans their country back so they can solve their own problems?  Yes.

    Declare victory and leave.  Enough of our men and women have suffered.

    • Stillin

      And theirs as well. And babies, toddlers, children.

    • Robert Riversong

      Yes, we can pretend we achieved our objectives if that gives us cover for leaving.

      Senator George Aiken (R-VT), the most senior member of the Senate suggested that we just declare victory in Vietnam and go home. “It may be a far-fetched proposal, but nothing else
      has worked.”

  • Fredlinskip

    How Leave Afghanistan?
    Just leave ‘em a copy of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” on the runway, so as they can have at “Democracy”-
    AND GET THE HECK OUT.

    We can always drone-strike ‘em “BACK INTO THE STONE AGES” if we don’t like what’s going on.

    (Actually that “Stone Ages” thing is probably inappropriate seeing as they’re there already)

    • Robert Riversong

      Just leave ‘em a copy of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” on the runway, so as they can have at “Democracy”

      I’m glad to see you put “Democracy” in quotes. Common Sense didn’t seem to be in sufficient supply here in America for a real democracy to form.

      But then, we also ignored Paine’s last wisdom, his final pamphlet Agrarian Justice, in which he proposed an inheritance tax on the wealthy to create a social security system for the 99%.

      • Fredlinskip

        Interesting.
        His later works, of course, drew less attention, after his indictment of established religion in “Age Of Reason” didn’t go over real well.
        Might have to do my homework and look into that pamphlet.

        “Common sense”, (whether Paine’s version, or generic meaning of word) seems to have been largely lost along the way since 1776 as far as our Democracy is concerned- if it’s even still fair to call it that.

  • Roger Chapell

     Most experts think that when the U.S leaves Afghanista the Taliban will take over with a host of consequences to the region’s stability.  They never mention the likely chief beneficiaries of these consequences, the elephant in the room, Afghan women and children. Perhaps they don’t mention this because like myself, the consequences are too hideous to contemplate, and perhaps like myself, who would dearly love to end our involvement there, it is the one reason why we should remain.

    Why should the world not proclaim that this has become a war to protect women and children?  Is it because there is still a mindset that consideration for the fate of women and children is too sentimental, of far less importance next to  concerns of sententiously gilded buzz words; regional and national security and stability?

    When we speak of the consequences of the Taliban returning to power, we know very well with brutal certainty who the beneficiaries of consequences will be. All the rest is speculation.

    Some pundits will give a saddened sage answer: ” It’s just one of those historical tragedies.”  We spent trillions thinking we can change the political culture of the Mideast, at a cost  of thousands of lives, but barely a farthing for women?

    I don’t neccessarily advocate continued war. Perhaps if the elephant in the room were made visible, if the casus belli were the rights of women and children rather than some dead beat government in Kabul, spiritless Afghan army, and vague elusive regional goals, then the world of people concerned with women’s rights and safety could rally in a way that infused meaning to what we are doing there, and perhaps an overwhelming response would bring enough moral and political pressure to crush the Taliban with many fewer lives lost.

    The United States government headlined the abuses of the Taliban when we went in there in 2001. To right these wrongs become by inference part of mission, our responsibility.

    The united states claims to stand firm behind its rhetoric
    of world freedom.  Will it also acknowledge its committment to ending world abuse of women and childen?

    • Alan in NH

      Not denying that conditions for women and children in Afghanistan are not good and with a Taliban government in place wouldn’t get worse…but if this is to be a world response to how women and children are treated in Afghanistan, where is the rest of the world? And is it reasonable to assume that one can change a culture that has had a certain perspective on gender for at least fourteen hundred years over the course of a decade or two or three? And are there not similar abuses in many other parts of the world, and do they also require our intervention? Where does it end?

      • Roger Chapell

         Thanks for responding Allen. Where is the rest of the world indeed? I hope they are sitting deeply troubled about afghan women even as they dismiss it as an opportunity to declare a real mission instead of high rhetoric such as ‘regional stability inter alia, so noble in timbre but barely conceivable to most of us and so not something which moves us.
        It is reasonable to protect now and expect change later.  When I was young, women could not get credit and were limited in the job market. In the early 1920s women were finally allowed to vote. Big changes in 90 years. Certainly there can be change.

        Most developed countries are addressing women’s inequality and my hope would be that such a rallying cry would bring a concerted response worldwide, not with an armed crusade to destroy the Taliban and free women, but by the shear weight of moral admonition.  This may seem whimsical, but isn’t worth considering at least?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

      Some people don’t understand that, whatever we explain. I am still for the war in Afghanistan and will always support the women and children of Afghanistan.

    • Robert Riversong

      “rhetoric of world freedom” is precisely what it’s always been: sheer propaganda.

      You forget, perhaps, that the US created the Taliban by funding the fundamentalist Islamic mujahadeen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. We also created bin Laden.

      The US cared no more about women’s rights then than it does now. Let’s stop believing in American mythology, acknowledge the horrific truth about US foreign policy and leave the rest of the world alone.

      We have no moral standing to determine the cultural values of any other people.

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

        Well said and spot on target. The US has become, and has been, the largest purveyor of death the world has ever seen.

      • Roger Chapell

         Thanks Robert.  Yes I sound a bit naive I suppose.

         I agree with you that America’s concerns for Afghan women were cynical
        as was its declared purpose of defending freedom nothing more
        than a
        ruse for military adventurism.

        I don’t for a moment think the U.S. government will find its high
        purpose in the defense of Afghan women although they could use that
        excuse to stay there (although with some conservative exceptions we don’t
        seem to want to stay there).

        I also agree that the U.S. now lacks the moral authority to lead any kind of moral mission. We may be participants but other nations less sullied by brutal occupation incidences, suspicion of imperial designs, and heavy handed tactics, should lead.

        I do point out that there is a just concern for the fate of Afghan women and children and that a coalition of world governments who have not lost their moral authority as we have should lead the mission.  There is greater force in worldwide admonition then in the army of one nation whose goals, objectives and its violent behavior can render.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    The real terror war is Afghanistan that was the home base of the Al-Queda protected by the Taliban but we concentrated our effort in Iraq. That was a big mistake.

    As I read comments since the beginning of the war everyone seems to be against Afghanistan and but no say about Iraq.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

      Yes it is True of we leave Afghanistan now the Taliban will rule again. US soldiers sacrificed their lives and died to make Afghanistan a better place to live. We fail those soldiers if we leave.

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

        Have you ever heard of making just a FEW comments. Replying to your own comments is beyond all reason. Are you drunk? Are you insane? Or both??

        • Modavations

           I say let him speak!!!!What are you an arbiter?Let it rip Fax!!!

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

          NO I am not drunk I support the War like any other Americans out there. I was only 15 years old when the Soviet Union invaded the Afghanistan and heard Filipino Moro warriors that left the Philippines to support and fight with the Mujahideen.

      • Robert Riversong

        Anyone who joins the military believing such an absurdity that our goal is to make anyplace a better place to live, needs to have their eyes and minds pried open in order to see the truth about US foreign policy. 

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

          And your telling a Filipino in Boston about US policies, please!!! I know your government well since 1898.

          • Fredlinskip

             Dang! You’re no “spring chicken”, are you?

        • Modavations

          I’ll try again.Tell me why WHO said the DDT science was bull.Look at the blood on your hands.You defend silly Eagles while 5 million die.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    if you think about failure. failure will come to you

    • Anonymous

      Positive thinking would obviously solve this mess.  Group hugs for the Taliban.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    The rest of the world wants to help the people of Afghanistan but the resources to fight the war is only limited to the countries that are rich.

    • Modavations

      I don’t want to help them.Let them make their own way.We do too much helping in this world.They have T.V.s and computers.They can see how the rest of the world lives.They can choose their own destiny:ie laissez faire,or communism socialism

    • Robert Riversong

      And if you think about self-serving myths, you’ll come to believe them.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        Well if you listen other nations news you will come to believe them.

    • Fredlinskip

       A large percentage of rest of World seem to observe America’s actions, policies, ideologies, and Prez candidates and go:

      “Huh??”

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

    Anyone with a history book could have predicted what folly any misadventure into Afghanistan would be. We can thank George Bush for this blunder of HISTORIC proportions. The American government has parted ways with the interests of the American people. It is both criminally and morally bankrupt.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

      We spent 10 years concentrating on Iraq to find the WMD and Afghanistan was left out until Obama concentrated AGAIN in the real war in terror that is Afghanistan.

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

        Correction:  We spent 10 years being lied to by a corrupt and broken government. Thousands of our young people have died for nothing because of the lies told by Bush. Trillions of our tax dollars have been completely wasted.

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

          of course I know that but we concentrated our effort in Iraq when the real war in terror was in Afghanistan.

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            You are correct my friend. However I say again…anyone with even the barest knowledge of history would have seen that any incursion into Afghanistan was a fool’s errand. Bush bears responsibility for the strategic blunders of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

        • Modavations

          One trillion is the cost and he did not lie(my opinion).We’ve gone over this a million times.Every Dem.was for the war.Bush got 16 sanctions from the UN.Tenant,Clinton’s CIA guy said it was a slam dunk.You say Bush lied,I say he had been given faulty intelligence.By the way the Brits,the Russians,et al.thought he had WMD.You’re an idealogue,a hater

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            And you are gullible beyond belief. The sad fact is that most people are like you, and the politicians count on your ignorance based compliance. If the citizenry were alert, informed and involved, as Jefferson envisioned, these wars of profit would not be allowed to occur. You are as guilty as Bush and have blood on your hands too.

          • Modavations

            Tell that to Bill Clinton,to Hilary,Clinton,to Bob Kerrry,.to John Kerry,to karl levin,to tony blair,to,to,to,to

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            Spoken like a mindless rightist Republican. Nonsense, slogans and BS is what you folks thrive on.

          • Modavations

            We’re down to the name calling.Can’t plead your case,so you throw a tantrum

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            Cant stand the truth, eh? How predictable.

          • Modavations

            Refuteme

      • Robert Riversong

        MLK’s observation that “my government is the greatest purveyor of violence” is as valid (more so) today as it was in 1967.

        As Noam Chomsky wisely suggests “the best way to stop terrorism is to stop engaging in it”.

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

          No it is not the government is the greatest purveyor of violence it is us – Humans that create violence go out there and see how much violence we see and encounter almost everyday of our lives.

        • Modavations

          Noam Chomsky was a defender of Stalin.Stalin greased 20 million.I heard him ages ago at MIT(?).He droned on and on and on.He’d probably given the speech a million times.Answer me about DDT and WHO’s pronouncement that the science was bogus and 5 million Africans are dead.This is the second time today,I’ve asked

        • Modavations

          Send some of that Crack down to Boston.If we compiled all your gum flapping from today alone we’d have Tolstoy’s War and Peace”

  • Anonymous

    Anyone interested in the Afghanistan debate should read “In Retrospect,” Robert McNamara’s mea culpa for the Viet Nam debacle. In it he admits that as the architect of our strategy in that sorry mess, he got everything wrong. Everything from our military tactics and strategy, to our woeful misunderstanding of the Vietnamese people themselves. He believed we merely had to defeat communism, but found out that the real enemy was nationalistic fervor, a powerful sentiment that most people feel when their country is overrun by an outside force. He also admits that we could have left Viet Nam in 1967, five years earlier than we did, a time by which most Johnson administration insiders already knew that we were unlikely to prevail. Had we left then, instead of 1973, he claims the outcome would have been exactly the same, except that 30,000 fewer American soldiers would have been killed. Back then, the reasons many gave for staying the course were the same reasons we hear today as regards Afghanistan. “We’ve invested too much to leave now,” “We must not leave until some order and stability are in place,” “If we leave now, all Hell will break loose.” As Robert McNamara himself claimed, we’re not asking ourselves the right question. The only question that matters is, CAN WE PREVAIL? If you think we can, you can make your case. History, and events as they have unfolded in Afghanistan over the last decade, would indicate otherwise.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      Exactly. And only corrupt and morally bankrupt “leaders” would have forgotten those lessons. I submit that they did not forget…but simply did not care. Iraq and Afganistan were opportunites to make money and enhance personal ego and military & political careers. Thousands of our young people died for this folly. Trillions of our tax dollars were wasted on this folly. George Bush has blood on his hands and is personally responsible for this fiasco of historic proportions.

      He should spend the rest of his days in jail. As a waring to future politicians.

    • Modavations

      Oh,oh here comes Ultrax.Get into it with this guy if you want.You’ll go around in circles.His intention is cerebral violence.This is how he gets his jollies.Remember the kid who used to pull the wings off flies.I’ve missed you Ultrax

    • john w. rippetoe jr.

      Just asking feettothefire, or anyone else reading, how was the film/documentary Fog of War? Would it be pertinent, academically or historically or biographically to departure from Afghanistan?
      PS. I’m not military, but I still get the dilemma posed by: “To leave now would be to dishonor the sacrifice of all those who have already died or suffered, both soldiers and schoolgirls surviving acid burns for trying to attend schools being established.” And I’m not trying to be glib, but sooner or later, somebody, some one casualty is going to be the last person to get killed in a conflict. Maybe ours have to start murdering kids in their sleep before we decide that’s enough blood and suffering for the gods for now.

      • Anonymous

         “The Fog of War” was really just a film version of McNamara’s book. You’d be better off reading “In Retrospect.” But, don’t get me wrong. While McNamara admits to many mistakes, he also tries to tap dance around the full extent of his culpability, trying to claim anyone else would have made the same mistakes. If you really want to read about blatant politicization of war, read “Dereliction of Duty,” by Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster. I promise you, you will weep.

        • Fredlinskip

          Read? Books? Are you suggesting we should learn the facts? How are we citizens to walk around happily with all our myth-based beliefs and prejudices, if you have us learn the facts?

          • Anonymous

             Please forgive me. I forgot that reading and personal pursuit of unbiased information have become antiquated notions, relegated to old fogies like me. For a moment there, I forgot that I need only listen to Rush Limbaugh to get the “facts.”

  • Scott

    Why is the volume level so low for OnPoint on the web? I have everything turned up full volume and still it’s pretty soft. 

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

      It is not only On Point it is also You Tube, Facebook etc
      I noticed that last night. there is something going on the in the Net.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    I was for the War and will continue to support the War.
    I am sorry.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

      if the history books only show how the Filipino Moro warriors left the Philippines to fight with the people of Afghanistan.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      Do yourself a favor. Buy a world HISTORY book and read it.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        I know have History books I got tons of them but not all are accurate I bet you still believe that Christopher Columbus discovered America but it is out of topic to discuss.

        • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

          I believe that any HISTORY book you own is strictly for show, and has mever been opened. Based on your commentary you have no knowledge of world history, or US history. A willing and gullible beliver of the propaganda fed to you by a corrupt and morally bankrupt government. Folks like you enable people like George Bush to be elected. In a better world he would have been a used car salesman in Midland, TX…nothing more…and precisely where his intellectual ability would have taken him.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

            Do you actually believe everything you wrote? I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I am a Liberal. You don’t know me in person so stop contemplating about something that is not true. know the person in real life and you will know his/her perspective why they support the war.

            I respect your opinion that you don’t like the war. please respect my opinion why I support the war in Afghanistan. Every human being has a different opinion in life. you cant force someone to think like you.

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            I refuse to accept anyone who supports the insanity of war, and I will call them crazy, regardless of their politics. I am a progressive and life long independent. I am not hobbled by political, racial or leftist dogma.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

            You don’t like War but you comments creates war. Well I refuse to listen to you end of Debate.

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            Bow out when you cannot sustain your argument. How very Republican of you.

          • Modavations

            He’s liberal.You are at war with your demons son.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

            even your political views is confusing life long progressive does not exist.

          • Modavations

            when has there not been war

      • Modavations

        That’s a standard ploy you guys use.”You should read more”.Most of us are College guys and have read everything

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Moda has read everything?   Probably another ‘chemical’ delusion, that he is famous for?

    • fredlinskip

        Grant you one thing- Afghanistan conflict made a whole lot more sense than Iraq conflict ever did.
      Perhaps occupying Saudi Arabia would have most sense, since most perpetrators of 9/11 originated from there.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

    JasonA you don’t like Wars but on this message board you tend to fight to the better end to support your anti-war rhetoric.

    For me it is hypocracy at its best.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      You have got to be drunk. I hate war and the corrupt politicans and military men, and corporations who get us into these disasters for personal profit and gain.

      My “wars” are fought with words, not bullets. Nobody died because of my position, no tax dollars were wasted by the trillions. I have that right because of that little thingy called the First Amendment. Ever hear of it?

      What it makes me is consistent. There is not one shred of hypocrisy in anything I have said. You are blind and gullible…perfect fodder for government and Republican propaganda and lies. You are the type of person that the right has wet dreams about.  A never questioning fool who believes their dis-information and worse yet…supports it, gives money to support it. Amazing.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

         will DIE IF YOU KEEP CALLING ME DRUNK!!!!DOES MY COMMENTS SMELL LIKE ALCOHOL!!!
        DOES YOUR FAVORITE WORD GULLIBLE?
        DOES ANTI-WAR SENTIMENT HELP THE US SOLDIERS JUST LIKE WHAT HAPPENED IN VIETNAM?

        CALLING ME A FRIEND ON MESSAGE BOARD BUT BASH ME IS SOMEWHAT A LUNATIC IN MY OPINION. YOU DID NOT FIGHT THE WAR YOU HERE SAFE AND SOUND. WHAT ARE YOU COMPLAINING FOR?

        • Anonymous

          Wow. 

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            I second that.

          • Modavations

            Try budding out for a change.Turn off the computer,go listen to Rev.Al

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            I think jefe68 missed the memo that put you in charge of this site. So did I. Until I receive it, seems to me that it is not your decision to make, dirty homophobe.  

          • Modavations

            Here’s the memo.Quit the swearing,quit the invective,make a point.

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            Sorry…the memo is not yours to send. I made many points…all apparently lost on you and your dirty bigotry and homophobia.Now go find a rebroadcast of Rush Windbag…I am sure you can find your kindred spirit somewhere on the internet.

          • Modavations

            Refresh me,what point did you make?

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            Go back to sleep.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Swearing?  Where?

          • Anonymous

            Who asked you, troll boy.

        • Zero

           “Does anti-war sentiment help the US Soldiers just like what happened in Vietnam?”  …As far as I can tell there wasn’t enough anti-war sentiment to end Vietnam and save tens-of-thousands of lives from dying needlessly. 

      • Modavations

        Just pathetically bad mannered.Because the guy disagrees he’s now a drunk

        • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

          No fool. When people reply to their own comments, more than once, it is fair to ask if they are sane or not.

          • Modavations

            I think you are excusing your foul temperment.

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            However I am NOT excusing your dirty bigotry and homophobia. Back to the bunker with you Oberst Reichsprotekto Heyderich.

          • Modavations

            Just hate speech.Is there a point?

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            Yes, and YOU keep missing it. DUH

    • Modavations

      this is why I ask these guys if they’re gay.The over the top ,hysterical ones ,say they’re gay.Someone should do a study,a psychological work up

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

        Dirty homophobe.

        • Modavations

          I believe you told me you were gay.You are hysterical.Is there a psychologist in the house.I am not anti gay,I’m antihysterics.Playing the gay card is the same as playing the race card.Make an intellectual point instead of ranting “Hang Him”.Here in the U.S. we afford a trial before sentencing

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            You are a dirty bigot and a homophobe. A sick minded right wing idiot.

          • Modavations

            Not another nervous breakdown in public.One of the countries problems is that the citizens no longer feel shame

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            I feel the shame you should be feeling. I feel shame that people like you feel free to discriminate. Just another dirty bigot and homophobe.

  • Disgusted Listener

    So what happens when we leave Afghanistan and some Taliban-clone regime takes over and begins sheltering Islamist terror cells again? Remember why we got into Afghanistan in the first place. I guess President Obama figures by the time America is attacked again he’ll be out of office and it can be blamed on someone else.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      Exactly. The circle of fools is complete. Afganistan is a quagmire. George Bush should have know that before HE foolishly ordered our troops into that disaster.

      • Modavations

        I guess your ideology is affecting your hearing,.Here’s the list of people who thought there were wmd…Bill Clinton,Hillary Clinton,Bob Kerry,John Kerry,Karl Levin,Colin Powell,George Tenent,Tony Blair,and on and on and on.Bush got 16 sanctions from the U.N.What # sanction is Pres.Obama up to as regards Syria?

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

        I hope you marched on the street to protest INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING ABOUT THE WAR ON MESSAGE BOARD.

        • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

          Here people like you reade it. But common sense is LOST on ya.

      • Modavations

        I know you suffer from a blinding case of Bush Derangement Syndrome,but I’ve given you the list of Dem.confederates a few times.Is this intentional denial.

        • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

          And exactly how many of the people you list made the DECISION to entangle the US into this quagmire? I place blame where is deserves to be placed. Or are you so blind as to be prounced another Republican AMNESIAC?

          • Modavations

            Remember Tenent,who was Bill’s CIA Chief.I remember him saying to Bush.It’s a slam dunk Mr.President

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            I repeat for clarity:  read my lips, who made the DECISION??? Muddying the waters does NOT make your point at all.

          • Anonymous

             The decision was made by the man who said “I’m the decider.”

          • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

            You got it. None other than the criminal George W. Bush.

          • Modavations

            Of course Bush made the decision.He was President.I would imagine that he took counsel from Pres.Clinton,George Tenent,Tony Blair and every other world leader who also thought there were WMD.I forgot how many countries participtaed,but let’s just say beaucoup.

          • nj

            “Tenent”

            Blathering idiocy. Again. Still. Forever.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

      Taliban will return and the billion of dollars of war investment and human lives went down the drain.

      • Anonymous

        Kind of like Vietnam.

    • Anonymous

       Please clarify your stance. Is it your belief that we should stay in Afghanistan forever, or are we supposed to magically accomplish something we’ve been unable to accomplish in over ten years? How much longer do we try? Five years? Ten years? Fifty years? Is no amount of failure too much, or do you really believe that we will prevail where Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Alexander The Great all failed miserably? What has happened in the past decade of war in Afghanistan that could possibly give hope to anyone?

    • Anonymous

      Well you know we could just stay forever and still be attacked by terrorist. The best way to fight terrorism is through intelligence and not occupation. 9/11 could have been prevented had the FBI, CIA and law enforcement been communicating on data. In the days before 9/11 the CIA and FBI and even groups within the FBI did not share information. Al-Qaeda should have been a top priority and they were not. Fighting terrorism is more about police action than invading countries. If it was the latter we would have invaded Iran a long time ago.

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

        Exactly. Our trillion dollar a year national defense state MISSED it all. We are no safer now, in 2001 or in 1941. At least back then we were not spending a trillion a year on defense..so that could be explained. Now there is no excuse for negligence on the part of the MIC.

      • Fredlinskip

         Holdovers from Clinton years in W admin  INSISTED that Al Qaeda be made a top priority.
        Unfortunately their warnings went unheeded.

      • Anonymous

         But doesn’t “War on Terror” sound so much more romantic than “police action?” We must inspire all the tough guys somehow. Why, look at all the success we’ve had with the “War on Drugs.” I mean…maybe….if….oh well, never mind.

        • Anonymous

          All of the terrorist caught in Europe since 9/11 and before mind you, were the result of the police work in the European nations involved. GB did in the IRA not by using it’s military, but by good old fashion police work with informants. The police are as only good as their informants, it’s how it works. 

    • Zero

      Pray tell–when are terrorist groups ever going to end in the Middle East in general?  Pakistan is harboring terrorists, why don’t we fight them?  How about a holy war?

      Wars like Libya mitigates hatred of America.  Helping Syrians would mitigate the hatred of America…in Afghanistan it seems we are helping al-Qaeda’s cause and the Taliban’s cause.   

    • Fredlinskip

       Let me ask:
      Do you approve of declaring a permanent state of “World War” which is to go on as long as world exists, and brand it “War on Terrorism”?

    • Heaviest Cat

      Hey DL,
       So we should remain there forever? Maybe our presence there is creatring those terrorist cells. The Afghanis might well be tired of being occupied by a foreign power.BTW why were we there to begin with?

  • Fredlinskip

    Inspired by comment of Tlyell below:
    When you get past all the long-winded explanations and “justifiable reasons” that America was subjected to for our “adventures” in Afghanistan and Iraq, didn’t it TRULY all come down to satisfying one simple goal and reason; the “lowest of human instincts” (as Tylell put it), that of REVENGE??

    And if the principal operating motive behind our actions were principally that of revenge, should anyone be surprised that the results have been far less than “stellar”.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      Do not forget that dear leader, George Bush himself, told us that we invaded to prevent a mushroom cloud in the USA? Would he lie?

  • Jmhohl

    What that army sergeant did this past weekend is outrageous and unforgivable – and by that I mean the blame ALL of us Americans must share for it happening. We say, “Support Our Troops,” but then we put them in harm’s way repeatedly without the psychological screening, evaluation, and treatment necessary when immersed in such unrelentingly high-stress, unrelieved, brutal conditions. “Not my fault?,” you say.  Well, the German’s claimed the same thing with the Holocaust…

  • Modavations

    Sorry to disturb you guys while your cutting each others throats.This is to BHA Vt.
    Io parlai con mi cugino.Il prezzo per litro di Benzene e pui o meno 2.00 euro per litro.Il prezzo Diesel e pui o meno 1.90 euro per litro

    These guys love their Diesels.My Cuz has a Honda and gets 20 km per liter with Deisel and 15km if running Gas.I forgot to ask him about the artificially silenced engine..On 100,000.00 income he pays 53% income tax and 23%(starting next month)IVA….No wonder the Europeans have free health care.Look at the friggin taxes

  • Anonymous

    Right now there are American military personnel in Afghanistan who will be dead next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. Think about it. As we sit here posting our nonsense, they’re alive. In a week or so they’ll be dead. Someone please tell me how anything we can REASONABLY hope to accomplish can justify that. Tell me how the mess in Afghanistan will have made these deaths “worth it.”

    • Zero

      You’re trying to talk to people who have a habit of giving personhood to anything that is not a living, breathing human being.  The human body is replaced with a soul that floats off to heaven.  People who think like that can’t know how precious life is.

  • john w. rippetoe jr.

    Madness!
    In one hour, we were to wrap our minds around Obama telling us the fairytale that “This is not us.” Tom Ashcroft assuring us that the guy would never have to face justice in Afghanistan based on fairytale #2 that we (our military) “Always take care of our own.” And then being invited to share in the hysterical happiness of the mom whose son had returned in-tact and alive from service in Afghanistan.
    The madness in all that is
    child #1, deceased, murdered in his sleep by fully armed, combat ready US soldier,
    child #2, deceased, murdered in his sleep by same US soldier,
    child #3, deceased, murdered….
    Humanity demands: it’s either hysterics on all sides, or none at all.
    Fairy tale #1: “This is not us.” Or by extension “…the psychopath murderer is not us.”
    The psychopath murderer is every bit us! He went to our elementary schools, played in our little leagues, graduated from our high schools, dated american girls,  was wearing our uniform, trained to kill by our military officers, declared ready for combat by our psychiatrists, carrying weapons and ammunition we paid for, and doing the work we sent him to Afghanistan to do. Two of our presidents told him we needed him over there killing America’s enemies: kids, fast asleep in their beds. You can’t give up your seat on the plane thanking him for his service claiming him as yours one minute, and then retreat with “he is not us” when a few innocent kids are slaughtered by him in their sleep.
    And what’s up with him still being the alleged killer!!
    Stop the madness!
    What’s in doubt? What questions remain? His gun, his bullets? The monster murdered the kids in their sleep, right? Or did he wake ‘em first. What’s the problem!
    Fairy tale #2: “We take care of our own,” as if there was some code of honor implied. It occurs to me that the first thing an officer in the US military has to prove capable of is lying. They have to prove they can lie consistently and without conscience. (There are books about the Vietnam War still being published, no?) All of the officers in the chain of command looked both Pat Tillman’s parents in the eye and lied to both of them – repeatedly, in hearing after hearing - about what happened to their son. His parents would have been hysterical with happiness to see him return home alive. Ya’ think! Was Tillman not one of theirs? If there was a code of honor involved in taking care of their own, the murderer in Afghanistan would have been hung and gutted in his cell that night by his own for killing innocent children. Instead, he’s going to be swept away and hidden from sight and memory. Only, wait! They’ve closed Walter Reed Hospital. The Decider did that, didn’t he. Something about military psychiatrists denying treatment to veterans because PTSD is a fiction afterall so send them back into action in sleepy Afghan villages since we can’t afford to provide medical help they might need.
    Fairy tale #3 On Point doesn’t care about the ratings. Otherwise, how explain Tom Ashcroft injecting the following into a discussion of whether or not Afghanistan is a catastrophe: (my paraphrase) “We all agree that what happened in the Afghan village last week was horrible.” Blah, blah, blah…puke. Is there any way you can now imagine more successfully deodorizing and sanitizing the murder of innocent children (oh wait, maybe I’m assuming too much, maybe they were Al Qaeda.) in the night while they slept?  

  • Heaviest Cat

    mythology is one of the US’s most effective weapons of war. It’s an efficient and inexpensive way to derail any critical inquiry into foreign policy.

  • Roy Mac

    Now that we understand that Afghanistan will implode into something or other after we leave, why do we stay?  The only reason we are there is to transfer money from US tax payers to drug lords and religious idiots 12,000 miles from the USA, who–btw–live in the 13th century and prefer it that way.  Gingrich, by my lights, is generally an idiot, but his observation of the Afghans as willing misery-lovers is probably correct.

  • Duncan062

    why  werent the afgans so eager to protest and fight  the taliban ? l’ets get out and leave them to their fate 300000 afgans police and they cant defeat the  taliban  Lets GO!!!

  • Modavations

    So many psychopaths.This isn’t a forum ,it’s therapy for some of the angriest guys I’ve ever seen..You go round and round,get angrier and angrier.Some of you guys sound like you’re having nervous breakdowns.Turn off your computers and go watch SyFy.    Mr Riversong.I’ve asked you repeatedly why you felt it more important to save Eagles then use DDT and save the 5 million subsaharan malaria victims.I told you that in 2006 The World Health Agency said the hype was unfounded,start using the product.Your lips flap and flap,yet you remain silent when queried

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA

      My oh my…now who is the angry bitch? YOU

      And it is vastly more important to save eagles. Without a doubt.

  • Nick Danger

    Does BUR moderate this forum?

    • Anonymous

      No.

  • Hidan

    “BHA in Vermont
     You are saying it costs 100 TRILLION dollars to support the 100K troops in Afghanistan?”http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/money/cost-of-keeping-one-soldier-in-afghanistan-is-risingBy Larry Shaughnessy CNN – Keeping one American service member in Afghanistan costs between $850,000 and $1.4 million a year, depending on who you ask. But one matter is clear, that cost is going upUnder Secretary Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller, responded “Right now about $850,000 per soldier.”the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments reached about the same issue.

    “The cost per troop in Afghanistan has averaged $1.2 million per troop per year,” the center’s Todd Harrison wrote in an analysis of last year’s Department of Defense budget.Would probably explain why the military is crying bloody murder about cuts in defense.
     

  • Nick Danger

    Because if they do whoever is in charge is not doing a very good job.  You have one guy calling people all sorts of names and posting over and over again.

    You have others feeding the fire and the entire forum is now being taken over by these diatribes and pointless tit for tat responses. If BUR does not want to moderate the forum or enforce any rules of civility what’s the point?

    • Anonymous

       I think this forum exists simply to provide Tom with an occasional “listeners comment” to read on the air. Otherwise, it seems to get little attention from anyone at WBUR.

  • Theprotectorsgroup

    from an Afghan cutural expert…
    instead of nation building, we should have been district building… the lowest common denominator.
    Each family in a district is related to most of the others…
    because the Afghans marry first cousins until they run out, then they barter out the remaining for favor or pure cash. Blood is way thicker than water. if a guy from the district (family) is lucky enough to get a steady job, he becomes a big shot and must provide for the huge extended family first… provincial and central gov’t isn’t even on the radar! From the cop directing traffic to the minister of interior to the president are in the same mindset… they call it taking care of family, we call it corruption. Every man, woman and child is corrupt by the wests definition… it is how they know how to survive, they are “preppers” without cash for supplies.

    • Ian

      Roger all,
      Strangers or outsiders from another district see nepotism like this as normal and baseline honorable. They would be shunned if they did not.   This is not to say that they wouldn’t try to have him killed in order to turn the tables though.  Think clannish behavior.

ONPOINT
TODAY
May 24, 2013
453 Comments
President Obama talks about national security, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Oklahoma’s monster tornado. The president on counterterrorism. A vote on gay Boy Scouts.

May 24, 2013
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A metal fan crowd surfs in a mosh pit during the heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air in Germany. (Philipp Guelland, DAPD/AP)

The definitive history of heavy metal and what it’s always been about.

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In this 2011 photo, U.S. Navy sailors participate in intense 10-minute workout intervals. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael K. McNabb/U.S. Navy)

Rock-hard bodies in a fraction of the time. We’ll look at the 7-minute workout and the promises of high-intensity exercise.

 
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In this 2010 photo, a sign announcing the acceptance of electronic Benefit Transfer cards is seen at a farmers market in Roseville, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

Congress says food stamps are costing the country too much and debating big cuts. One in every seven Americans is using them to eat. What’s going on?

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Thursday, May 23, 2013

New York writer George Packer says yes. He reflected on the nation’s core institutions failing the American people.

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WIRED’s Bill Wasik On The Henry Fords Of Today
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

He talked about how Google and Tesla are paving the way of innovation and how technological development is related not only to creativity but to environmental responsibility.

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Switching Shows For Our Second Hour Today
Friday, May 17, 2013

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