Set aside the possible merits, you can’t spend nine years shooting at Muslims and getting shot at by Muslims without a significant portion of your society developing a dislike for Muslims. And, while that’s a disturbing trend, it’s also true in reverse. A significant number of Muslims are developing a generic dislike for Americans. In other words, making war on each other isn’t reducing the threat of violence between us. It’s increasing that threat both domestically and abroad. I know this should be obvious and predictable, but apparently it is something that no one in Washington DC can figure out.
I don’t mean to suggest that we don’t have an interest in a stable Afghanistan, but we also have an interest in spending that money in more productive ways. And we aren’t actually getting a stable Afghanistan, so there is all this downside without much upside. We don’t have to give up on protecting ourselves, but we have to be much smarter about it. What we’re doing now is eroding the character and tolerance of people on both sides of the conflict.
I would question the blanket statement “we aren’t actually getting a stable Afghanistan”. Rachel Maddow’s awesome reporting from Afghanistan showed to me that we are making some progress at doing that. It’s slow and incremental, but there is some positive things happening there that are surely being overshadowed by the bad stuff like civilian deaths and corruption. The military really does want to get out of there and so does the president. It will happen.
And another 5 soldiers were killed there today, and two MIA’s. 🙁 I am sure there have been some gains made, but can you tell me that we’ll be able to secure the whole country?
I don’t think the plan is for us to secure the entire country, just the areas that are in rebellion against the central government and affiliated with the Taliban groups that sheltered al Quaeda. And securing the back door to Pakistan as Pakistani troops move systematically through the Northwest Territories.
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was draw right down the middle of the Pashtun tribal area. And done deliberately, so I’ve read, to reduce their power. I think stabilizing that border is a dream that will never come true and all attempts will cost us dearly.
Her awesome reporting (no snark intended) also showed massive amounts of US money were being siphoned off and used to build McMansions, adjacent to lots full of garbage and unpaved streets.
This crap….
…is probably the worst piece of historical research on record. Still, many believe it in spite of its scholarly trashing, especially those who think that countries like Iran deserve to be invaded by the US. The theory seems to have been based on Islam’s alleged penchant toward intolerance and religious violence. History has just never supported that notion, and although there were more religious-Islamic conflicts after the break up of the Soviet Union, due mainly to the Islamic nature of many of the peripheral states, there was just no evidence of prior conflicts. But that is just where Huntington based his claims, and where Islamophobics follow his lead.
If Pakistan doesn’t clean the foreign fighters out of North Waziristan by late September, it is time to pack up, leave, and let the chaos sort itself out. But in order to do that, we must reduce our funding and knee-jerk support of the Likud government in Israel. And begin a rapid process of weaning our military off oil.
None of those will be politically easy.
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Wise up! Some of us have predicted the backlash as soon as Bush & Co. decided to invade Iraq as part of the new policy of “pre-emption” designed by the Likud neocons. We have written diaries and seen the historical facts pass by of destruction on Bali, in London and Madrid. Multi bombings elsewhere and threats throughout the “civil” Western world under U.S. sphere of influence. The operation dubbed Enduring Freedom is just laughable and will be without any result. I noticed the changing atmosphere of hatred towards Muslims as soon as 9/11 happened. I noticed it in Dutch politics, rise and fall of Fortuyn, Van Gogh murder, and the dragon head of racisme taking hold with friends and close family. I have written about the rise of Geert Wilders in Dutch politics and his political and financial support from the likes of Daniel Pipes. The Jewish community in The Netherlands is complaining of anti-semitism and getting media attention. The facts reveal anti-semitism is at a very low level and racism against Muslims are ever increasing since 9/11 and it’s aftermath.
No surprise in this week’s British news headline: Iraq inquiry: Ex-MI5 boss says Iraq war raised terror threat
The comboy foreign policy of Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Bolton have aggravated our allies throughout the world and turned them against us. Pakistan has only begun to cooperate in conjunction with the US under the leadership of President Obama and his National Security advisors.
“When the London bombers struck five years ago, many people blamed the invasion of Iraq for inspiring them. But the connection between 7/7 and British foreign policy goes much deeper. The terrorist threat to Britain is partly `blowback’, resulting from a web of British covert operations with militant Islamist groups stretching back decades. And while terrorism is held up as the country’s biggest security challenge, Whitehall’s collusion with radical Islam is continuing… dependence on militant Islamists to achieve foreign policy objectives is an echo of the past, when such collusion was aimed at controlling oil resources and overthrowing nationalist governments.”
London tube bombing, terror and torture: Protecting the Deep State
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It is hard to overstate just how deeply unpopular the United States is in the Muslim world.
A 2008 poll of six majority Muslim countries found that overwhelmingly large portions of the population, ranging from 71 percent in Morocco to 87 percent in Egypt, held unfavorable opinions of the United States. A 2009 poll in Pakistan revealed that 64 percent of the public views the United States as an outright enemy.
As Audrey Kurth Cronin of the National War College observed …”To me, the most interesting thing about the five [Virginians] is that it was their parents that went immediately to the F.B.I. It was members of the American Muslim community that put a stop to whatever those men may have been planning.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Booman, you’re an unaccountable blogger so saying these things is reckless and dangerous. Only qualified news anchors of impeccable breeding who do not have any speech impediments and look real purty too are allowed to even consider discussing such matters.
And rightly so, because for the good of our elite Beltway society they refuse to do so. After all, the truth can lead to anxiety attacks, an addiction to Xanax and not being invited to Sally Quinn’s teeny tiny weenie roasts (for the anchor that is).
These are obviously matters that a person of insignificance would never understand.
The more I learn about Islam the more I dislike it. I am fairly sure that it’s generally unrelated to what is going in Iraq and Afghanistan. I certainly do not support violating the constitution to stop people building mosques.