Shattering Records: Afghanistan

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I started writing this diary on July 20, put it in draft. It was based on Richard Haass’ cover story in Newsweek on July 18 of this year. It is still very relevant in that the war in Afghanistan has taken on a different aspect than when it start over nine tears ago. As pointed out by Glenn Greenwald at Salon, the US of A Breaks the Soviet Record this past week and still has not recognized waste and the futility of the effort.

It seems clear that a similar — or even grander — prize awaits us as the one with which the Soviets were rewarded.  I hope nobody thinks that just because we can’t identify who the Taliban leaders are after almost a decade over there that this somehow calls into doubt our ability to magically re-make that nation.  Even if it did, it’s vital that we stop the threat of Terrorism, and nothing helps to do that like spending a full decade — and counting — invading, occupying, and bombing Muslim countries.

This is Mr. Haass’s appearance on “Morning Joe” on July 19, 2010. It is still very pertinent

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While I strongly disagree with Mr.Haass on the use of drone and missile attacks, as well as air strikes, what he says about the ground troops is very true. There are far better ways to make the US safe from terrorist attacks than invading a country, destroying property and infrastructure as the US did in Iraq and killing innocent civilians. The actions of the US and her allies  steeled the resolve of the terrorists and given them recruits and support. It is fairly obvious that the Obama administration is not thinking and has learned nothing from the 20th century Russian adventures or from the English in the 19th century.

3 comments

    • on 11/27/2010 at 17:57
      Author

    and not starting any new ones.

    • on 11/27/2010 at 20:01

    Living in Riverdale, so close to the the Russian compound, I’ve had several Russian girlfriends. People who move into Riverdale represent the Russian immigrants for the Diplomatic sector, meaning the children of Moscow.

    They were all born between fifteen and twenty years after World War II but the common bond they all had because of parents with permanent war injuries, parents who were orphaned or left with many relatives lost in the war, the one thing they all had in common was a deep seated hatred for Germans.

    And for the past nine years we’ve been fighting them there so that we don’t have to fight them here. I guess that in thirty years we expect children who lost their parents to some drone missile and had their school blown up will forget. But it dosen’t work that way.

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