jcj

Thu, Jul 22, 2010 : 10:42 p.m.

@MozhganSavabieasfahan "occupiers wish to steal local resources by subjugating the indigenous population." Please name the last place the US came out ahead by going to war to "to steal local resources" How many of the places you mention in "the region" would allow you to speak out against the powers that be? It is clear to all that you care only about Palestine & Lebanon. The only reason you mention the others is so you can "stay on topic" and spread your propaganda!

bedrog

Thu, Jul 22, 2010 : 5:38 p.m.

re colonialism in afghanistan (a theme introduced by my dear friend mozhgan)...actually the british raj is probably lookin pretty good right now for the afghan /pak region...as im sure many locals would agree (if they weren't afraid of being beheaded by their fellow freedom loving'locals' in the taliban/al qaeda). iraq is not a remotely appropriate topic for this thread. nor is israel which has no colonial ambitions beyond its tiny historically and legally validated scrap.. (and some contested border regions,which would no doubt be resolvable if the people living there... backwaters of the truly colonial imperialistic islamic expansion era..abandoned their antisemitic genocidal policies,however ineffectual.

bedrog

Thu, Jul 22, 2010 : 4:56 p.m.

@ mozhgan..yeah...the taliban are sooo sensitive to the other 'locals' they bomb, behead, bully...as are your beloved hamas to the kiddy camps ( of their own people ) that they burn down, and the honor killings they advocate/perpetrate on their fellow 'locals'..as welll-as the just retribution from israel they persist in bringing down on their fellow locals ( who evidently are valued as human shields) let alone what they ( and you) would like to see them do to jews and other 'infidels'. interesting how among your evildoers are now 'liberals'... is there anyone you DON'T hate, aside from mashaal ( of hamas), nasrullah ( of hizbollah), the taliban and ahmadineajad...and a certain as yet to be captured/killed fellow whose name rhymes with our president ( but isn't).? and MODERATOR. there is NO personal abuse here...nor have i used words like " crackpot', 'malice filled', 'obsessive'...so i trust this will not be deleted.

MozhganSavabieasfahani

Thu, Jul 22, 2010 : 12:54 p.m.

The refusal of liberal Americans, like you all, to see that it is the colonialist ambitions of the U.S. /Israel and the West in Afghanistan and the rest of the region (Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, etc) that has created the current crisis is mind-boggling. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and elsewhere in the region, the fight is over local populations desire to control its own resources and determine its own fate; and occupiers wish to steal local resources by subjugating the indigenous population. It is as simple as that. If someone broke into your home, raped your mother, killed your father, destroyed your environment and infrastructure, and then wanted to force you to work for them for peanuts; would you not resist and fight back? That is what Afghans and Iraqis are doing. They are resisting colonial powers which are there against popular wish and are destroying life and environment. U.S./Israel OUT!

jcj

Thu, Jul 22, 2010 : 11:01 a.m.

@ David We don't agree on much but kudos. I couldn't have said it better.

bedrog

Wed, Jul 21, 2010 : 1:13 p.m.

packman..and possibly in arabic or pushtu or farsi or dari ( afghan persian)if we don't stop jihadists as they crop up.

packman

Wed, Jul 21, 2010 : 7:30 a.m.

Old Arab Proverb: I against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my brother, my cousin and I against the foreigner. We will be having this same conversation 25 years from now...

bedrog

Tue, Jul 20, 2010 : 3:30 p.m.

top cat..brevity does NOT equal clarity in this case. wherever the immediate staging sites of the 9/11 hijackings, afghanistan and pakistan were the mothership...and there have been globally destabilizing things since then emanating from the pak/afghan area that you seem to ignore... the recent attempted times square bombing being just one.. obama, thank god, is not a 'head in the sander' like ron paul ( who's from outer space)and others from the far ( as opposed to the sane)left who think we can just walk away from this admitted rats nest without dire consequences.

Top Cat

Tue, Jul 20, 2010 : 2:26 p.m.

The 9/11 attack was planned in Hamburg, Germany and here in the U.S. The Obama Adminstration has thrown in the towel on this war. We are not going to win and not even sure what a victory would look like. I agree with Michael Muha and he is to be commended for his clarity and brevity.

Husker7

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 10 p.m.

@bedrog - I realize I seem a little sympathetic to these hatemongers, and I do not wish to give that impression... I'm just saying we're doing no good with our worldly occupation. Believe me, I'm the first to admit that the whole media uproar over the Green Revolution's claim of fraud in the 09 election failed to recognize the overwhelming silent support for the system... not that there might have been fraud, I'm just apt to believe that there was a majority that supported the status quo. I hope this doesn't stray too far from the topic, I'm just trying to say that I'm not ignoring, just bringing up another angle with Steinbeck. P.S. I'll bow to you on specifics...

bedrog

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 7:20 p.m.

husker..whatever the number of al qaeda, the taliban are now virtually indistinguishable from them in ideology and tactics...and between afghanistan and pakistan there are 30 million pashtun that are at least marginally sympathetic to ( or utterly cowed by) them... and they do training camps for international jihadists.. this is simply not ignorable.. or 'steinbeck'able p.s my academic career was centered on this region

Husker7

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 6:50 p.m.

@Ryan Quattro (Maybe @bedrog too) My main reasoning for the suggestion was because of the obvious surface message that you seem to ignore in favor of the allegory of the story. The message is that even the most docile population will resist if occupied. Steinbeck wrote it DURING the war, not afterward, so he was trying to provoke resistance efforts, yes, but he was also trying to send a message to the present-occupier, and all future occupiers around the world... I don't argue that resistance alone brought the end to the Third Reich. And yes, the Vietnam comparison isn't perfect, but at this point in the war, it fits. The reasoning for our presence has gone away with al-qaeda (all 100 of them left in Afghanistan apparently pose a "physical danger")

bedrog

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 4:15 p.m.

i agree...pak/afghanistan is one contiguous theater...and increasingly yemen and somalia look like ones too. by effective propaganda i include ethnic and sectarian 'divide and conquer ' ( or at least nullify) strategies, which,although cynical, have incredibly fertile ground in all those regions and are in fact 'respectful' of the indiginous cultures...which have done exactly the same thing to each other from time immemorial. another related place to watch/attend to is the pak/iran border where indiginous baluch tribes are already in overt insurrection against both governments and have a presence in sw afghanistan as well. in any case checking our "import western liberal democracy" notions at the door in lieu of simply 'minimizing capacity for attacks on us' may be the most realistic and attainable outcome.

David Briegel

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 3:44 p.m.

The Taliban live there. We can't "win" there. Al Queda is mainly in Pakistan with offshoots in Yemen, Somalia etc. Our conventional, big footprint Military is mostly useless. What army, navy or air force would ever fight us? We have squandered 7 years, trillions of dollars, millions of lives and thousands of our precious youth in our military and are little further than we were 7 yrs ago. You are correct about drones and black ops as the only effective tool. Osama who?

bedrog

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 11:35 a.m.

the north vietnamese never attacked us on our own soil...the afghanistan based al qaeda did,and its taliban hosts have tried and will again by their own admission.. bad analogy. this is a lousy...and maybe conventionally unwinnable war...but its one that must be fought at some level, even if by drone and effective 'black ops'... to say nothing of more effective propaganda and greg mortenson " stones into schools/3-cups of tea" stuff ( although if the taliban burn down the schools, and kill the students that's not a sole panacea..!) per husker..far better than steinbeck is an actual knowledge of the history of the region which goes beyond the abortive several british and russian afghan debacles,which for many is where afghan history begins and ends..

concerned

Mon, Jul 19, 2010 : 9:41 a.m.

would u perfer a draft system to be started again,,that got u our young people do have mines of their own they can sign up or not have u asked your self y are they doing it,there in lies the problem u voice your self to the world but not to the young people that r signing up y r u not out in front talking to the people that r signing up,or is it that u know they sign up out of pride for the usa.,i did my time in the service from 79-81 in the army and i was proud to know that if i was needed i would go,and if i was not beyoud my prime i would sign up this minute and serve my country again,would u,,

Husker7

Sun, Jul 18, 2010 : 11:29 p.m.

@Ryan Quattro Silly book? Maybe you think it's silly because you see the surface metaphor but fail to comprehend the blatantly obvious message. Occupation turns even the most docile population into a resisting force. Sure, the resistance efforts weren't the sole reason for the defeat of the Third Reich... but Steinbeck wrote the book DURING the war, not afterward. His message was meant to not only inspire resisting populations, but to send a message to the then-present occupiers, and all future occupiers... And to your general response: It's not an exact replica but the idea is the same... His line "strengthening the resistance" is key. And Afghanistan presents a present danger? All 100 al-qaeda operatives left in Afghanistan? Wrong-o, buddy. How's the saying go, "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon"? I think that's what Boehner was talking about, right? Time to leave the Graveyard of Empires.

Ryan

Sun, Jul 18, 2010 : 10:45 p.m.

Husker7, that is a silly book. It wasn't internal resistence that stopped the Nazis, it was the arms of Russia and to a lesser extent, the US, Britain, and France that defeated the Nazis. The fact is that the Nazis crushed resistence within western Europe. It was only in eastern Europe that the Nazis found serious trouble and that was due to the fact that tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were able to melt into the countryside during the initial German success' of 1941. A determined occupier who has no constraints on what they will do to suppress resistence, can succeed. William of Normandy's Normans, The Moors in Spain,the Europeans in the Americas,.. all either resided for centuries like the Moors or are still to be found in the areas they occupied so long ago. Eastern Europe would still be under the Soviets thumb if not for the USSR's economic collapse.

Ryan

Sun, Jul 18, 2010 : 10:28 p.m.

This is an analogy made by more than a few. It is tempting one to make considering the length and difficulty of the conflict. However, the analogy is not a good one. One, the Afghanistan was a war of necessity. The US did not go into Afghanistan for ideological reasons like Vietnam. There was no Gulf of Tonkin incident. There was no gradual infusion of troops and military support of a local regime. It was and is a war thrust upon the United States because of the attacks of the 11th of September, 2001. Secondly and more importantly, Vietnam did not contain within its borders elements that present a physical danger to the homeland of the United States of America. Afghanistan does. For whatever reason, people think that if we leave Afghanistan and Iraq, the war will end. That is such a terribly ignorant and short sighted view. The US and its liberal secularism represents a grave threat to Islamic extremists. Hence, no matter what we do we will ALWAYS be a target. We can sit here and apologize for our support of Israel,of tryannical regimes in the Middle East, and for occupying several Moslem nations and it still won't be enough. We are their raison d'etre. They exist to fight democracy, secularism, and liberalism. One only need to read their tracts to see what they stand for. They are the religous version of the Nazis'. Like the Nazis, they have a sound grasp of public relations and have exploited media to sell their ideology. They have played to peoples fears and prejudices to make themselves appear less threatening and even heroic in some minds. The war is not going away even if we leave Iraq and Afghanistan. People are going to have to learn to grasp the "new normal". That of unending war.

Husker7

Sun, Jul 18, 2010 : 9:14 p.m.

Short and sweet. Michael, if you haven't already, I'd suggest reading The Moon is Down by Steinbeck. Thanks for your service.