Comments on Progressive Historians: History For Our Future: Afghanistan: All For Absolutely Nothing

Mentarch:Of course there is a lot you could (and h...

2008-05-14T19:43:00.000-05:00

Mentarch:

Of course there is a lot you could (and have) added to it. But to me the problem in Aghanistan starts with an unwillingness to recognize that what we want for Afghanistan and what the warlords who are our defacto allies want for themselves might not be compatible.

I'm afraid the discussion threads at RT's place are (as far as I know) lost to the ages because he deleted the original blog before starting his current one, so the archive only goes back to January. Now that's mostly videos I don't visit much -for some reason I prefer to read posts rather than watch them.

Lexington: exactly - nothing more I can add to thi...

2008-05-12T10:25:00.000-05:00

Lexington: exactly - nothing more I can add to this. ;-)

Could you provide a link to your latest post on the subject? Thanks!

(and sorry if I missed it ...)

Mizgin: dying for oil? I agree to some extent. It is still for "nothing", when you think about it ...

Oh, come on! People and soldiers have not been dy...

2008-05-11T21:48:00.000-05:00

Oh, come on! People and soldiers have not been dying for nothing these past seven years . . . they've been dying for Big Oil and ONLY for Big Oil.

Is it any coincidence that both Hamid Karzai and Zalmay Khalilzad were both Unocal consultants? And the plans for Afghanistan were in the works well before September 11. Lots more on that here.

Same thing in Iraq and in Kosovo.

Coincidence that today a barrel of oil hovers around $125 and Big Oil is enjoying record profits? I think not.

Funny you link to Red Tory - I remember discussing...

2008-05-11T04:42:00.000-05:00

Funny you link to Red Tory - I remember discussing this very topic on his blog a number of times.

Granted, Afghanistan is a mess. In principle I agree with you there. However was there ever any reason to believe it would be otherwise, given that we are allied with a bunch of warlords whose principal claim to our friendship is that they aren't the Taliban? For whatever reason there tends to be a lot of naivety on this point. Supporters of the war in particular seem to have a deep seated need to believe that our Afghan partners are actually committed democrats eager to build a pluralistic, inclusive society under our benevolent tutelage (the parallels with how they conceptualize the situation in Iraq hardly needs elaboration). The problem is of course that they are nothing of the sort -so at bottom our entire Afghan policy is founded on a willful misconception of whom we are dealing with and the nature of their agenda.

And you say that policy is failing disastrously?

Funny thing, that.

Are we winning yet?

2008-05-08T16:20:00.000-05:00

Are we winning yet?