16 Candles in Afghanistan. Time to get out, not another surge.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:07pm

Just noticed that CNN put this out an hour ago. Watched it online.

Afghanistan: 16 years, thousands dead and no clear end in sight https://t.co/QkPcMdmJbX #news #latest pic.twitter.com/pWPOD9U70g

— Holly Porter (@Recruiter_trans) August 21, 2017

What a fucking fiasco and waste.

I guess at some point after he won in the back of my mind the thought had floated unbidden that at least on Afghanistan Trump might just do what he said in the campaign. But, no he instead allowed the biggest conventional bomb in the arsenal to be dropped and allowed for more civilians to be killed.

Sixteen years. Think about it. Bloody years. Wasted years. Bipartisan years.

Since Bannon is gone who is there in the Whitehouse to even push for an end anymore, if Bannon even ever really did?

Some are saying that with Bannon gone that a military coup of sorts has occured. We will see tonight how successful his generals have been.

Regardless, tonight The President will apparently call for more troops.

Veterans for Peace have been pushing back for months.

"Whatever President Trump announces tonight about Afghanistan... we can be assured the lies about American... https://t.co/M3dQ19CPZC

— Veterans For Peace (@VFPNational) August 21, 2017

Thousands should oppose increasing troops in Afghanistan. The time is now.

Some military families react:

Southland Military Families to Protest Possible Troop Increase in Afghanistan

A group representing the families of service members in Afghanistan plans to demonstrate Sunday against a possible increase in troop levels in what is already the longest-running war in United States history.

Representatives of Military Families Speak Out said they will gather at 4 p.m. near the office of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to demand that the United States withdraw all troops from Afghanistan and use diplomacy instead.

“The losses and injuries our families have already suffered from the ongoing wars in the Middle East have not been addressed and there is no end in sight for them,” said Pat Alviso, whose son has been deployed to Afghanistan for the sixth time. “We simply cannot ask our troops to make any more sacrifices than they already have.”

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Comments

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:24pm

Trump, like Obama before him?

Trump’s Afghanistan strategy isn’t really a flip-flop. But his entire foreign policy is.
By Aaron Blake August 21 at 11:47 AM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/21/trumps-afghani...

In some ways, Trump's evolution on this mirrors that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who promised to end the war in Afghanistan during his presidency and failed to deliver on it. Earlier in his presidency, Obama also signed off on a troop “surge.” It's really no surprise that a politician would see their preconceptions about foreign policy change upon inheriting the “commander in chief” title. (FiveThirtyEight notes this goes back much further than Obama.)

But on foreign policy, we are confronting perhaps the most serious and far-reaching flip-flop of Trump's presidency. It may not be a huge flip-flop on Afghanistan specifically, but it's the continuation of a huge one overall — especially considering the concerns people have about Trump's temperament and what it could lead to.

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by edg on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:34pm

War Envy

The generals and MIC are jealous of those damned Europeans who had a 30 Year's War and a 100 Year's War. We're amateurs with our puny 16 Year's War (so far).

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:43pm

Wonder how they are going to feel if this happens?

@edg

Blackwater founder wants to boost the Afghan air war with his private air force https://t.co/E0jbi0EdIw

— Small Wars Journal (@smallwars) August 2, 2017

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 2:24pm

It's my understanding that Prince wants to train the

@divineorder
Afghan troops to defend their country. How many times have we heard that this is what our troops are doing there?
If after spending 16 years training their troops, then why haven't the training taken hold yet?
How many more soldiers have to risk their lives training their troops?
And if this is the actual goal of our military, then the Afghan government can pay Prince themselves. How much money has been spent on this?

There are two reasons why our military is still in Afghanistan.
One is to get access to the trillions in earth metals
The second reason is to guard the poppy fields for the CIA who the opium to fund their black ops.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 3:20pm

All those dead civilians, sd.

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg
Fearful Villagers See the U.S. Using Afghanistan as a “Playground for Their Weapons”

US has denied civilian deaths in recent strikes in Nangarhar, despite claims of local Afghan officials. Troubling.https://t.co/cNoQEShly2

— Arif Rafiq (@ArifCRafiq) August 16, 2017

For what?

Money money money

This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a bing bong. pic.twitter.com/qhULxAfoUX

— Rep. Alan Grayson (@AlanGrayson) May 4, 2016

@snoopydawg

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 4:46pm

Sadly it's not only the people in Afghanistan

@divineorder
that are seeing our weapons tested on them.
How many countries has the military used white phosphorus, depleted uranium and other biological and chemical weapons on?
I've seen the pictures of what WP does to a body and can not understand how anyone could deliberately use it on people. The way that humanity has been stripped from the people who do these types of things to others is something I will never understand.

This goes for all the other ways that people do to other people. Take the 20 million people in Yemen who are starving to death and dying from wars and everything related to it. Plus the world is watching as the Yemen citizens are dying from cholera.

I'm hoping that the military families protests gains traction and we start bringing the troops home.

Submitted by jim p on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 3:36pm

Remember they said

@edg at the start of both Afghanistan and Iraq that these would be generational wars, looking at 30 and even sixty or seventy years of it.

—

Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Submitted by Wink on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 11:59pm

yep. Is why I don't

@jim p
pay much attention. After telling a GI Joe that "your next deployment should be your last," about four years ago, he answered, "we're never leaving (the sandbox). We'll be there another 20 years at least... " with a straight face, I pretty much gave up following the week to week there. And when Blackwater (Wall Street owned) expansion grew to essentially taking over the job of the U.S. military... well... mission accomplished for the MIC. And, their kids aren't fighting the war, so Americans just don't care how long we stay there. It's hard to get excited about what is going on there when the public sector (White House) no longer controls the MIC.
A bigger problem is I dont believe the MIC will stop at the Sandbox. Blackwater will likely return to the "Homeland" here, and start eliminating all that oppose them, start working on eleiminating the 99%.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 4:20pm

@Wink

@Wink @Wink

... A bigger problem is I dont believe the MIC will stop at the Sandbox. Blackwater will likely return to the "Homeland" here, and start eliminating all that oppose them, start working on eleiminating the 99%.

Can't have the made-desperate Disposables getting in the way, can they? Once we've been drained, who needs us, when the wealthiest'll have robotics and Virtual Reality in those luxury bunkers, for when the real world is rapidly made unlivable by their unrestrained and destructive greed - and while the power supply on the new hell-on-Earth lasts, of course...

Edit: once they stop the world, there'll be nowhere to get off to, of course, silly buggers.

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 4:09pm

@jim p

@jim p

Reassuring investors and the MIC, no doubt...

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by Bollox Ref on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 4:57pm

Even the various participants in the Hundred Years' War

@edg

Took long breaks during that 'century'. Continual warfare is very expensive and very unpopular.

—

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Submitted by Wink on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 12:15am

The History Channel reports

@Bollox Ref
today that the U.S. has spent over $4 Trillion (with a T) on Dubya's War on Terra. Enough to pay over $150,000 to every household in America. But we can't aford Social Security, can't afford Single Payer, can't afford Food Stamps, can't afford... (nice things, a pony). Well, I would argue that $150,000 per household pays for a boatload of those safety net items. But, nope. America broke.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 4:22pm

@Wink

@Wink

$150,000 per household would also give the real, dying ground-level economy a nice shot in the arm, wouldn't it? Especially with living wages all round... I dream...

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 4:06pm

@edg

@edg

Hey, The Psychopaths do what they can to catch up! Didn't they answer the challenge of the Wars of the Roses by dumping highly toxic Orange and other-coloured herbicide all over the people and environment of a country attacked earlier, as well as dumping bits on other people in various places? Killed a lot more than effete little roses, I'll tell ya!

https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/locations/tests-st...

Herbicide Tests and Storage Outside Vietnam
Herbicides storage tank

Agent Orange and other herbicides used in Vietnam were tested or stored elsewhere, including some military bases in the United States. ...

The US TPTB have already made No.1!!! where atrocities are concerned, in my estimation.

—

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:40pm

So it only took 16 years

for CNN to figure it out.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:42pm

No sheet . Have they finally come around because

@gjohnsit of their relationship with Trump?

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by OPOL on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:44pm

Thanks d-o.

Peace would be nice, eh?

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 1:49pm

Yeah it would, OPOL. Very nice.

@OPOL Thanks for the years you have done your best make it happen.

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 2:32pm

Hell, at this point I want to start an Anti-Recruitment Office.

Start a nice little office where folks in civilian clothes show desperate people how they can solve their employment problems and sign them up for medical help with no stigma whatsoever. No prayer meetings, no "Worthiness". Only requirement is that the person be actively considering joining the military.

I figure that for the really desperate cases who think they're hot shit and will be awesome in the service we just sign em up for the Scientologists. Same thing really with the slave labor and crap wages, and they won't have to kill brown people.

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 2:43pm

Hey that's a great idea.

@detroitmechworks This is exactly what's needed and wanted !

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by peachcreek on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 12:55am

And...that's the real reason that we can't make College free.

@detroitmechworks Sure, there are a lot of folks that go into the military because of family history, perceived patriotic duty etc.
Most though?
The ones I've met: They can't afford college, and think that this will get them there.
Or: they want a job outside of their poor violent neighborhood and have no other means to get there.
Cheeper college and a bit better social situation in certain neighborhoods, and...recruiting would go way, way down. Especially with the young that I know. They seem a bit less naive than my generation...
Throw in an incentive for citizenship and you've got a whole lot of poor brown and black folks getting shipped out.
The cost of that, economically socially and societally, is pretty much incalculable.
The oligarchs count that as a win. Cheap labor.

Submitted by Azazello on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 2:37pm

It's NOT A WAR!

It's an occupation. I keep saying this. Wars end eventually, occupations can go on forever. THEY NEVER INTEND TO LEAVE.

—

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 3:00pm

Wall Streets War Profiteers are like rust, never sleep.

@Azazello

The war profiteers would love more wars.
Currently in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan.https://t.co/OVmXquAOzd #NoMoreWars

— Michael McDonnell (@mikemcdonnell) July 31, 2017

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by dkmich on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 4:03pm

Endless piles of money for war and to protect

Trump's fat ass and the asses of his family. When they want something, money is never an object. We're only broke when it comes to spending money on the people and taxpayers. We need to destroy the Democratic Party and keep our fingers crossed that we don't go down with it. We will get muddied. I just hope we don't get dead.

—

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 6:56pm

Right. Now it's SS bipartisan hostage again

@dkmich

Social Security Works on the debt ceiling debate: https://t.co/nmr4hKLQ91

— Stephen Keim (@StephenKeim1) August 20, 2017

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 4:12pm

Afghan poll

Submitted by smiley7 on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 4:13pm

a ride on the peace train is well overdue...

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 7:49pm

Yes, it is smiley7

@smiley7

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by Big Al on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 5:08pm

Careful on Bannon.

He's an imperialist like Trump, they just have different views on how to run things.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/world/asia/trump-afghanistan-polic...

This is so despicable it's beyond words. Trump will go on the tv and lie his ass off as usual. In a way I want to watch it to hear how on earth he can try to justify this. But I can't stand to listen to the bastard so I'll catch the summary after.

This goes directly to 9/11 and if people really thought about it, proves that the official 9/11 story is full of lies. All war is a lie, this war is a lie and it's based on the lies of 9/11.

Submitted by mimi on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 5:33pm

at least I feel I am not the only one

@Big Al
who has the same feelings and thoughts. Thanks.

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 6:11pm

This does go back to 9/11

@Big Al

Barbara Lee was prophetic on 9/14:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh_sxilhyV0]

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by Big Al on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 6:57pm

That's exactly why I think you can simply point to these

@Timmethy2.0 three wars, the Iraq war, Afghanistan war, and the war OF terror, and how long they've been "waged" to basically prove that the intent all along was to use the 9/11 attack as their "new Pearl Harbor" to justify to the public their agenda. And that can only mean they knew it was going to happen, made it happen, and then proceeded on the merry way.

Submitted by lotlizard on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 1:56am

Hey, everybody, try this:

@Big Al
You can sing the words “Nine-eleven was an inside job” to the tune of the first line of the Herman’s Hermits song, “I’m Henry VIII, I Am”

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4OS17lqHiE]

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Tue, 08/22/2017 - 11:59am

I see more evidence of cowardliness than conspiracy

@Big Al @Big Al

There were a lot of headless chickens running around Congress, who could be easily cowed into taking the PNAC view. Hillary Clinton was among these headless chickens.

edit: To be fair, everybody was still in some state of shock in the weeks after 9/11. That's why I think people like Barbara Lee showed their rare strength. Barbara Lee for President 2020.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 6:20pm

Thanks!

@gjohnsit @Big Al

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by divineorder on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 6:25pm

RE: Bannon

@Big Al
Bolding how careful I am on him, from the essay.

Since Bannon is gone who is there in the Whitehouse to even push for an end anymore, if Bannon even ever really did?

Yeah, Trump will @Big Al lie for sure.
But like you I would be tempted to watch. However I don't have a tv. Guess I might find it streamed live somewhere. But nah. I didn't watch Obama declare 'war over.' I won't watch this either.

—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by Big Al on Mon, 08/21/2017 - 6:49pm

Didn't see that d.o., right on.

@divineorder I think a lot of people have been giving Bannon too much credit regarding affect on foreign policy. This Afghanistan war is a perfect example of "continuity of agenda", where the successive administrations are following the script for the New American Century. Bannon wasn't going to do shit about that and as the information I linked indicated, he was working for the privatization angle for the further occupation of Afghanistan. That's also why Trump cannot do anything but this, and Obama couldn't, it's too crucial to the overall agenda.

As far as listening to Trump. It was no different with Obama for me, I couldn't listen to him either. Or Bush. When you know someone is blatantly and arrogantly lying to your face, it's hard to stand it. Better to read parts of it for me.