Comments on: A LA Times reporter embeds with the Taliban, good info coming http://ballgunner.freedomblogging.com/2009/01/12/a-la-times-reporter-embeds-with-the-taliban-good-info-coming/170/ Snarky commentary on global military affairs Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:54:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: wonderpig http://ballgunner.freedomblogging.com/2009/01/12/a-la-times-reporter-embeds-with-the-taliban-good-info-coming/170/#comment-332 wonderpig Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:14:07 +0000 http://ballgunner.freedomblogging.com/?p=170#comment-332 (((Of course, the “lighter and more agile” Army is the secondary mission of the objective, the first being to make Boeing and Science Applications International Corp rich.))) LOL I don't know what to make of the second article. The Hill has about as much credibility as the National Enquirer, and General George Casey (how on earth did this FUBAR knothead ever get four stars?.........oh yeah, he sucked up to Rumsfeld.) should be cleaning latrines, not making command decisions. Before any permanent plans are made, this man should be removed from the loop. But it's probably going to be a moot point anyway, the economy is going to cause massive budget cuts, and programs that are not already up and running and/or experimental will be the first on the chopping block. (((Of course, the “lighter and more agile” Army is the secondary mission of the objective, the first being to make Boeing and Science Applications International Corp rich.))) LOL

I don’t know what to make of the second article. The Hill has about as much credibility as the National Enquirer, and General George Casey (how on earth did this FUBAR knothead ever get four stars?………oh yeah, he sucked up to Rumsfeld.) should be cleaning latrines, not making command decisions. Before any permanent plans are made, this man should be removed from the loop.

But it’s probably going to be a moot point anyway, the economy is going to cause massive budget cuts, and programs that are not already up and running and/or experimental will be the first on the chopping block.

]]> By: wonderpig http://ballgunner.freedomblogging.com/2009/01/12/a-la-times-reporter-embeds-with-the-taliban-good-info-coming/170/#comment-330 wonderpig Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:54:05 +0000 http://ballgunner.freedomblogging.com/?p=170#comment-330 Well, that top article from the LA Times was certainly a disturbing read. One wonders how long Hamid Karzai, the current president of Afghanistan, will remain in power now that American vice-president Cheney is out of office. Karzai was handpicked by Cheney to lead the unification attempt of Afghanistan (turning a land which has always been a confederation of individual provinces into a western style democracy) and has turned out not only to be extraordinarily corrupt, but adept at playing the US for fools. He has increased the poppy harvest by setting up his brother as a drug lord while alienating the normal poppy farmers by turning the NATO bombers on them. He has set up members of his tribe up as province chiefs in areas which do not want them, and their corruption has opened the door for the Taliban to return. He has maintained close ties with Iran, currently a hostile enemy to the USA, meaning that if the NATO nations leave Afghanistan, not only do the Taliban come back, emboldened by their victory, but Afghanistan will then be allied with a nation that we are currently in a "cold war" with. Common sense says that this man must go, but to remove him leaves a vacuum which will only be filled by extremist Muslims, and the entire point of the Afghanistan adventure was to set up a government that would rid the area of just that. Now we are doing the nation building thing, with minimal oversight, and the corruption is viewed by many Afghans to be American (western) made. If this gets to the point where it becomes a nationalistic thing, it will closely mirror what happened in Vietnam, with the USA propping up a corrupt government with a movement by the very people whom we don't want in power holding the "hearts and minds" of the very nationalistic and iconoclastic Afghani people. What a mess. Well, that top article from the LA Times was certainly a disturbing read. One wonders how long Hamid Karzai, the current president of Afghanistan, will remain in power now that American vice-president Cheney is out of office. Karzai was handpicked by Cheney to lead the unification attempt of Afghanistan (turning a land which has always been a confederation of individual provinces into a western style democracy) and has turned out not only to be extraordinarily corrupt, but adept at playing the US for fools. He has increased the poppy harvest by setting up his brother as a drug lord while alienating the normal poppy farmers by turning the NATO bombers on them. He has set up members of his tribe up as province chiefs in areas which do not want them, and their corruption has opened the door for the Taliban to return. He has maintained close ties with Iran, currently a hostile enemy to the USA, meaning that if the NATO nations leave Afghanistan, not only do the Taliban come back, emboldened by their victory, but Afghanistan will then be allied with a nation that we are currently in a “cold war” with.

Common sense says that this man must go, but to remove him leaves a vacuum which will only be filled by extremist Muslims, and the entire point of the Afghanistan adventure was to set up a government that would rid the area of just that. Now we are doing the nation building thing, with minimal oversight, and the corruption is viewed by many Afghans to be American (western) made. If this gets to the point where it becomes a nationalistic thing, it will closely mirror what happened in Vietnam, with the USA propping up a corrupt government with a movement by the very people whom we don’t want in power holding the “hearts and minds” of the very nationalistic and iconoclastic Afghani people. What a mess.

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