Comments on: Minnesota progressive voices join national chorus on Afghanistan

By: Bill Graham

Bill Graham — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Let us remember some lessons from Vietnam, painfully learned. (1) You can’t create political or economic development amidst a civil war unless you can guarantee security; (2) You will fail if you don’t work within local social and religious mores; (3) It’s their country, not ours, and ultimately they must be responsible for rebuilding it; (4) You’re not worth much if you can’t speak their language or understand what they want from life. I hope we give up on the Bush strategy of using pile drivers to stamp out ant hills. I hope Hillary Clinton has her way in taking the Afghan pacification program away from the Pentagon and placing it in the hands of USAID, Oxfam and other NGO’s. And I hope we understand that very good police work is a better antidote for terrorism than the 82nd Airborne and attack drones.

Bill Graham
Burnsville, MN

By: Fanatic

Fanatic — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:53:56 +0000

Don’t you know that St. Obama has said that the most dangerous people in the world are those
next to stone age dudes up in the mountains running around talebanning an’ stuff?

So we should bomb them back to the stone age. Oh, yeah, they are already in the stone age.

A million or so Affys and Raqis dead, isn’t that enough for our 2,900 911ers? Or do their ghosts
scream for more blood? “Not enough profits yet for the arms companies”, they say groan from
that memorial hole in the ground.

Keep killing until the Israelis look like saints.

By: Betty

Betty — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:31:23 +0000

This week’s Bill Moyer’s Journal was on bombing of Civilians to destroy the moral of a country and how it doesn’t work and also on why the contiued attacks and bombs and military action in Afganistan doesn’t work either and will be Obama’s downfall just like Vietnam was Johnson’s downfall. The guests explained the history and ethnic values and make up and long standing treaty of the Pashtuns and Pakistan. It was really good

By: Bill McGaughey

Bill McGaughey — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:04:12 +0000

Hi.

I have produced a book-length manuscript titled, “Inside an Independence Party candidate’s campaign for Congress in Minnesota’s Fifth District in 2008”, about my Congressional campaign last year. The result was 22,300 votes (6.92% of the total), good for a third-place finish behind DFLer Keith Ellison and Republican Barb Davis White.

The manuscript is posted on the internet at http://www.newindependenceparty.org/congress-summary.html.

Bill McGaughey

By: ex-PFC Chuck

ex-PFC Chuck — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:56:06 +0000

Concern over Obama’s planed “surge” in Afghanistan is not limited to those in the progressive corner. Earlier this week George Friedman, the founder and CEO of Stratfor, a private-sector intelligence provider based in Austin, TX, published one of his occasional free-to-the-public alerts about it. It contains a very cogent analysis of the strategic situation that underlies his assertion that it’s a bad idea. You can find the essay at the URL below:
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090126_strategic_divergence_war_against_taliban_and_war_against_al_qaeda

By: Keith Kuckler

Keith Kuckler — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:02:55 +0000

If you want to understand the way to “win” in south asia, I reccomend that you read “Three Cups of Tea”. It really shows the wisdom of soft power over conventional military/foreign aid, as a way to deal with the problems there. We will never solve the problems there with the conventional approach, but, the book shows what a very small amount of resources in the hands of honest and enlightened leadership can accomplish. The big problem with Greg Mortenson”s approach, is that that it eliminates the burecrats and “experts” who siphon off so much of the aid dollars. We need to re-invent the whole idea of the Peace Corp, and, spend the money that way, instead of military hardware.

By: Carol

Carol — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:18:48 +0000

What? Lump all peace groups in one voice? Impossible and rather insulting.

By: Eric Ferguson

Eric Ferguson — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:00:54 +0000

I just hope Obama doesn’t get talked into thinking more troops will make the same strategy work. I sure hope he isn’t thinking of trying to replace the Afghan president. If the Afghan government is seen as being picked by the US, it’s legitimacy is gone. More troops can buy more time, but that’s all. They can’t fix things. If Obama doesn’t stop to aid money flowing to connected American contractors, even more aid won’t help. The Afghans have seen the American presence coincide with years of instability, but what they have to see is electricity, running water, schools, roads, etc. Otherwise, they’ll remember that the Taliban at least provided order.

By: jonerik

jonerik — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:01:31 +0000

My sense from Obama’s Inauguration Speech is that he is following GW Bush and that we are likely to see a widening of the GWOT there. In fact, I would not be surprised to see more raids and action in NW Pakistan Waziristan.

I supported Jack Nelson Pallmeyer and I agree with him about the cause and effect of this country’s militarism. Maybe this country’s de facto bankruptcy will force the issue as it did for other nation states in the 16th-20th centuries. But Obama is swimming in a D.C. culture which has little awareness of reality and which really has a firm grip on the levers of power in this country.

By: Lazercat2009

Lazercat2009 — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:53:13 +0000

We need to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq now. They won we lost.