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An Arab was originally using Sudan to train his forces until we forced him out of there. Then he used Afghanistan to stage his attack, which involved zero (0) Afghanis. Now that particular person, bin Laden, is dead, so he can no longer launch attacks.
So why are we in Afghanistan again?
To say that it could possibly be used to launch an attack on us isn't good enough. Any country in this world can be used to launch an attack on us. The soda bottle bombers were from England, if their attack had succeeded do you think we should have gone and blown the British to hell and gone like we're doing in Afghanistan?
And to try and claim that we're somehow either stabilizing the region, or making it save from terrorists, or any other such claptrap nonsense is just bogus bullshit. Every attack that we undertake there creates more people who are desperately pissed at the US. Every bomb we drop, every missile that we launch, every bullet that we fire simply means that much less stability in the region. We have, and are, creating our own perpetual hell over there, much like we did in Vietnam. But hey, the makers of bullets, bombs, missiles and other military gear are enjoying healthy, if not record profits, all the while people are dying and entire regions will be laid to waste.
What will success look like in, what will victory look like in Afghanistan? Even the highest of high ups can't say that. Petraeus himself has said that we will never be able to use the word "victory" in conjunction with Afghanistan.
We have made the same mistake time and again, this time in Afghanistan. We have brought our military into what is, essentially, a war of ideas. When you do that, you automatically lose. Read an old, but classic book on this, "The Ugly American." Also look at what we've done in Afghanistan recently. Last December there was a large earthquake along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region that left thousands out in the cold without shelter or food. We could have immediately started dropping aid packages, sending in convoys, all stamped with that big fat MADE IN USA brand. Instead, we sat back and got beaten to the punch by the local terrorist groups who sent in their own convoys and aid packages. So who gets the better publicity, yeah, the terrorists.
You don't win a war of ideas using bombs and bullets, we've seen that doesn't work time and again. You win a war of ideas by presenting the better alternative. You send in you NGO's, you send in aid, you work with the locals, you help the people and create an air of good feeling about your country so that the next time somebody like bin Laden comes in the people will tell you of his coming while simultaneously not giving him aid because they don't want to bite the hand that feeds him. The trouble with this course of action, at least in some quarters, is that it is vastly cheaper to carry on the war of ideas than it is to bring in the military. Giving aid to the locals, bringing in NGO's, etc. doesn't make a buck for the MI complex. And that's the rub, the MI complex has a stranglehold on this government and this country, and until we break that hold, we're going to continue to destroy our own country while blowing others to hell and gone for no good reason.
Something else for you to think about in terms of what a little aid can do. Bin Laden himself has said that after the mujahideen had put their lives on the line, after the Afghani people had seen their country blown to hell and gone during the proxy war they fought for us against Russia, the Afghani people deserved some payback for what they did. They defeated the Russians and had suffered horribly for it, and thought that they deserved a nice aid package to start rebuilding as a show of gratitude. But the US didn't send that aid, instead we turned our backs on them, and that it was this act of ingratitude that set bin Laden down the path towards 911. Hmm, a few tens of millions of dollars twenty years ago and we would have scored a big win in the War of Ideas, oh, and prevented 911 and not be in Afghanistan now.
The MI complex has a stranglehold on this country, and it's been that way since the end of WWII. The "Merchants of Death" had seen what a wonderful new money stream they had during WWI, but after that ended couldn't figure out how to make that stream continue to flow, and had to deal with some serious backlash from the US population. WWII was a different matter, since the Soviet Union provided a ready made target, thus we launched into the Cold War, and the arms race began. After the Cold War, there was the War on Drugs and now the War on Terror. How does one win a war on nouns? Anyway, the point of the matter is the MI Complex has successfully insinuated itself throughout government to such an extent that virtually everybody and every agency puts the priorities of the MI complex first, and everything else, including health care, the environment, education, the very welfare of the people comes in a distant second. You can't conceive of Obama being part of this? I hate to disappoint you, but he's been bought and paid for too. And woe be to those who try and buck the MI complex. Funny, how Kennedy was shot just after he issued NSAM 263 and the rough draft of NSAM 273, before these two memos could be put into effect. These two memos would have ended our involvement in Vietnam by 1965 at the latest. Funny how one of Johnson's first actions was to tear up those orders, and instead accelerate the war. Ever since then, it seems as though whenever the MI complex has said "Jump" the government merely asks "How High?"
If you don't see this at work here and now, then you need to wake up. Just because our current president talks a good game, just because he is affable and charismatic doesn't mean that he isn't in the same grasp of the MI complex as all the rest. He has double down in Afghanistan, and while he has drawn down in Iraq, he hasn't, and won't completely withdraw from Iraq. What will it take for you to wake up and smell the roses? The complete draining of our treasury, with no end in sight? That's where we're at right now. Wake up, stop being a pawn, a dupe, a tool. There is no reason for the US to be militarily engaged in Afghanistan, and the longer we stay there, the worse we make matters, both for the Afghan people and for ourselves.
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