Why we want out of Afghanistan
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Most Australians want us out of the Afghanistan conflict. It doesn’t matter how old they are, how they vote, or how much they earn. That’s what Essential Research found in the course of its polling last week. Support for increasing our commitment (the Coalition’s policy) was in single digits. Support for keeping it at the same level was around a quarter of voters. Support for withdrawal was over 60%. Many of the breakdowns in Essential’s polling data are too small to make meaningful judgements, but it was noteworthy that fewer women want more troops sent, and more want us to pull out, compared to men. And Greens voters are much more strongly in favour of withdrawal. And opinion against the conflict has hardened over the last 12 months. In March 2009, Essential found that 50% of voters wanted withdrawal. Just 14% — double yesterday’s figure — wanted to increase our commitment. Support for retaining the same level of commitment was the same at 24%. Driving this is the damaging combination of a slow, steady drip of casualties coupled with the impression we’re not getting anywhere. Those literate in international affairs would be aware of the deep problems of corruption and fraud around the Afghan government, but that won’t register with most voters. They just can’t see why we’re continuing to sacrifice our young men for what appears to be no good reason. There may still be strong support for the strategic goal of stabilising Afghanistan and preventing it from returning to a haven for large-scale terrorism, but there’s strong doubt it can be accomplished in the short or medium term. And the rate of casualties is sufficiently low that each one can be grieved over individually, unlike in larger-scale conflicts. There’s no risk of anyone becoming inured to the loss of Australian troops when we can see each of their families, and our leaders attend each of their funeral services. Those with real responsibility for the ongoing problems in Afghanistan appear to have escaped judgement. US neo-conservatives and officials in the Bush adminstration and Blair government are why we are still mired in a seemingly endless conflict. The 2001 attack on the Taliban, their removal and the occupation of the country was justified morally and legally. Instead of devoting resources to stabilising, securing and rebuilding Afghanistan, the US and the UK, with Australia supporting them in the role of international neo-con yap-yap dog, launched an illegal and immoral attack on Iraq that will remain an example of tragic mis-judgement for generations. Our soldiers continue to pay the ultimate price for that decision, which left Afghanistan as a second-tier conflict that reinvigorated the Taliban and dramatically increased the cost in lives and resources — Afghan and western alike — required to achieve the goals of the original invasion. The successors of those governments, all of whom inherited the mess in Afghanistan, have been left with no easy, inexpensive or satisfactory options, only voters who are sick of the lack of progress and want to stop the casualties. |
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137 Comments
One need only read ‘A Study in Scarlet’ by Arthur Conan Doyle to see the futility of wars in Afghanistan: it was written in 1883 - the only good thing to come out of that conflict was Dr Watson’s being repatriated and meeting Sherlock Holmes…
Bernard, do you have a handle on the damage which has been done and will be done to this weak but resilient country if we simply pull out now?
Do Australia and the other nations involved there have a debt to be repaid, or should we simply roll up our swags and wander off? Is it morally acceptable to just leave? Or morally unacceptable to stay?
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
So, the flame has all but died in this “coalition of the willing” legacy - that should have been over in 6 weeks, according to the glossy brochures, distributed by the government and their media cheer-leaders at the time?
So now we get out and “leave them to it” - to get on with their lives, in what “we”, in our “values”, and cavalier fashion, created?
Abandon them and forget about what’s happened, so that we can do it all over again whenever the mood, or politics, takes us?
Just drop them like “expendable” hot spuds?
“We” that broke it, the least we can do is, fix it - and remember. We owe them that much, as fellow human beings, don’t we?
The last 3 paragraphs are the key. We missed out on seizing a moment. Iran is the biggest beneficiary of this decision. However, with respect, it is not just our soldiers who are paying the ultimate price: every day Afghans - most of whom are just making a living - are killed just going about their business, by American drones or suicide bombers, or hired gunmen. As for whether the 2001 military attack on the Taliban was a good idea will need a bit more historical distance. It is NOT unusual to hear young Afghans describe the preceding government as the real terrorists, comprised of old Northern Alliance members (who were supported by the West and Iran) - whose vicious infighting reduced Kabul neighbourhoods to bullet-pocked broken plaster and killed thousands - and opened the once incredibly rich Afghan National Museum to ongoing looting.
As for lack of progress: it totally escapes me why we think such a country will become a model democracy in just two electoral cycles - post-Taliban and 35 years of occupation, war, civil war.
Think medieval Europe when kings ruled the capital and not much else - and they had to work out whether to entice or bludgeon the provincial nobles into power-sharing arrangements. And there are few nobles in Afghanistan’s provinces, just warlords who are now in Parliament. As Afghans have noted, unlike in former Yugoslavia, the international community didn’t haul such people into the International Court, or even suggest a process of truth and reconciliation.
No argument that the war has been massively bungled but that is not a good enough reason to leave. If you believe in withdrawal then you have to come up with a plausible argument about why Afghanistan would not become a terrorist harbouring and training base for ever more. It is intolerable that such a state should be permitted to come into existence.
Kevin the Lemon is not a palatable discussion for a dyed in the wool lefty, so it’s back to Howard/Blair/Bush bashing….but not too much Blair.
Iraq was and is a success.
It is now a second Western style democracy in the Middle East and next door to the greatest threat to world peace the evil theocracy in Iran.
Australia has made a proud contribution.
The left have such conveniently short memories….. of Bali for example.
John Bennetts has a point. The first aid for someone stabbed with a knife is not to simply pull the knife out; that has to be done by surgeons or you can kill the patient.
The reason for the “impression we’re not getting anywhere” is that there aren’t enough soldiers to win it. They were going exceedingly well until we spread too thin, diverting forces to what was really a geopolitical operation in Iraq.
Attacking the Taliban had nothing to do with anything, they offered up Bin Laden on 14 October 2001 and in any case they are just Afghans and they did not attack the US.
Saudi’s attacked the US in a criminal action that required a criminal investigation not 9 years of bloodshed and madness.
Global terr’ism is a furphy, the arabs just wanted the US out of their countries.
Iran is nothing to do with anything and in spite of whining by Israel is still nothing to do with anything.
The attack on Afghanistan was planned years before starting not long after the end of Charlie Wilson’s war in 1989 when the Russians were sent broke by the actions of Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the CIA throwing billions in weapons and training at the mujihadeen.
Do try and keep up a cursory fact or two. And David, the biggest terrorist training base in the world has been the US since the school of the Americas was opened in 1946.
“The 2001 attack on the Taliban, their removal and the occupation of the country was justified morally and legally.”
This is fatuous nonsense!
And if it’s terrorists you’re after try Riyadh or Washington. Or are terrorists just those who justify spreading terror for different reasons than ‘us’?
You’re paying to much attention to borders on maps, David Sanderson. The “terrorists” come and go from Pakistan as they please. No US stranglehold on Afghanistan will reduce terrorism one whit.
Then, of course, there’s the glaring question of how “get bin Laden, a Saudi who ordered Saudis to attack the WTC” turned into “bring down the Taliban and install people just as backward as a replacement.”
The “intolerable state” line is simply ridiculous. There are dozens of intolerable states in the world, but we’re expected to believe that Afghanistan is so much worse than North Korea, Burma, Saudi Arabia and pretty much all of west Africa that it deserves special attention.
From Vietnam to Afghanistan, same old three card trick….
First tell a pack of outrageous lies to justify ‘western intervention’ (ie military invasion).
Second, prosecute the war with fervour and massive firepower, pretending all the destruction is for the long-term good of the inhabitants
Third, when that just doesn’t wash any longer, admit the war has made a complete mess of the invaded nation - but claim pulling out would be ‘selfish’ and irresponsible (eg. “the war has been massively bungled but that is not a good enough reason to leave”)
When will we ever learn?
It’s all that lovely oil and gas in the Caspian sea, that pipeline that has had the US sucking up to Georgia and the minerals that were found by the Russians when they invaded, not last month as the US claimed.
I note though that no-one is caring a toss about the tens of thousands of dead Afghan civilians who had nothing to do with anything.
@KLEWSO, JAMES McDONALD,JOHN BENNETS
Your false justification for being in Afghanistan is that if we leave it will get worse…that is nothing but a circular argument and borders on the rediculous..ie ..the chiken or the egg.
On one side we have the guys in the Black Hats..the Taliban..them there terrorists!!!
On the other side we have the guys in the White Hats…Nato and the US.
Both the guys in the Black Hats and the White Hats are funded by the same purse…and in the middle we see the worse possible degradation ever inflicted upon the innocent Pashtuns and their sub-groupings.
If I open my mouth on this forum and say what 10 years of independent research on Afghanistan will reveal..the moderator will shut me down, tie me up and gag me, so it’s just ONE BIG MUTE.
None of you are even half close.
11 September 2001 - 19 terrorists trained in Afghanistan and sponsored by backers of the Taliban regime launched an attack on the USA.
The Taliban regime, at the time, denied that both Osama bin Landen or Al Quaeda had anything to do with the attack.
They were wrong. They paid the price.
Those are the facts, not like the bizarre conspiracy theories above…
I love how these old Whitlamite Lefties have morphed into de facto apologists for the Taliban.
But then, ol’ Gough didn’t give a shit about the East Timorese or Vietnamese, did he?
“Civil rights for inner-city urban latte-sippers, but the Devil take the hindmost elsewhere!”
Not very Fourth Internationale, Comrades…
Can you back that up with documentary evidence, Peter Phelps? Sounds like the revisionist version of events to me.
The answer to your glaring question Sancho is this - after Sept 11 George W Bush said that we will treat those who harbour terrorists the same as terrorists themselves.
I think that is right, and therefore I agree with Bernard that “The 2001 attack on the Taliban, their removal and the occupation of the country was justified morally and legally.” The Taliban harboured Al Qaida, and that is why we joined a war for their removal from power. I don’t buy the “we broke it we should stay around and fix it” line for Afghanistan - the reason we broke it was to remove the Taliban from power. I’m comfortable with letting Afghanis take over the country as it is after our invasion.
That said, if we can’t do what we need to do in 9 years then we probably won’t ever. So it was right to go in, in 2001, and it’s probably the right time to leave in 2010.
Sancho, there is plenty of documentary evidence.
Whitlam and the (anticommunist) Vietnamese refugees: http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/ghwcContent.php?ghwcID=3
Whitlam and East Timor: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s71200.htm
If we take away the particular ideological justifications for terrorism and look objectively at the acts of given organisations - and don’t exclude states - then the acts ‘our’ states commit are far worse terrorism that the horrible acts of the Taliban, al-Quaeda, etc. Should we also encourage bombing of Washington and London? (And, to keep things in proportion, perhaps someone could fart somewhere on the edge of Canberra.)
Sancho you ask for evidence.
Whitlam and the (anticommunist) Vietnamese refugees
Whitlam and East Timor
If the Essential poll reveals that 60% of people reported support for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, then surely this is an election issue.
As with Vietnam, Australia just blindly followed the Americans into the mess.
We are currently propping up a warlord president and his cronies whose only interest is to make as much moolah as possible and to hell with the citizens of Afghanistan. Now that lithium is on the agenda watch the Yanks do what they know best; capitalise on the situation by having us stay on for ever whilst they exploit the situation for their wealthy miners. We’ve paid a huge price for world war two thus far and there’s no end in sight.
Oh, by the way, I am tired of seeing crocodile tears from our politicians after each death announcement. Why don’t they just stay out of it and show some unaccustomed sensitivity to the families. The pollies, after all, are the ones who knowingly followed the Yanks into this. Pity they can’t send some of their own families into the battle.
James, my query was regarding Peter Phelps’ claim that al Qaeda “sponsored” the Taliban, and that “The Taliban regime, at the time, denied that both Osama bin Landen or Al Quaeda had anything to do with the attack.”
Check the post times.
@PHELPS
##19 terrorists trained in Afghanistan and sponsored by backers of the Taliban regime launched an attack on the USA.##
Yea right, and this morning I found a copy of the Koran on my 80 year old neighours front porch so she must be a terrorist…for gods sake man!!!
The war for oil in Iraq was a success for the Americans, if that is how you judge success James K. Saddam had to be got rid of so the Americans could get their hands more directly on Iraq’s oil resources and that is what has happened.
As an old Whitlamite Leftie, I agree that troops need to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, But what then? Do we just let the Taliban reassert themselves? Memories of Sunday afternoon executions in Soccer Stadiums when the Taliban were in power and women kept at home, not allowed to go to school or university trouble me, just a few examples of the feudal society that would be re-established if they regained power in Afghanistan. Do we just let the tribal warlords fight it out? What if that leads to another Somalia? It would be interesting to hear these questions answered by those who advocate immediate withdrawal. I have asked these questions before and not got a coherent answer.
By the way Peter Phelps, it was not that Whitlam didn’t care about East Timor. There was a Cold War on at the time - remember and a red revolutionary force was seen as a threat, wrongly as it turns out, but all governments make mistakes. If I started listing Howard’s foreign policy mistakes this blog would crash! And Vietnam - Whitlam withdrew the troops from Vietnam. Get your history right.
Sancho, the first prerequisite for becoming an accepted and legitimate state is that you do not attack other legitimate states for non-defensive reasons. Of the states you name only North Korea poses such as a threat and is under immense pressure as a result.
Obviously also, the threat posed by the close intertwining of the Taliban of and Islamist terrorism posed threats far beyond Afghanistan’s region - further justifying the worldwide military response.
““Civil rights for inner-city urban latte-sippers, but the Devil take the hindmost elsewhere!”
Lol if you think the Karzai government and his various warlord allies give a damn about civil rights.
So David you would class the US as a non-legitimate state? (And no, don’t get into the ‘tell me which states they have invaded’ mantra)
Sancho, David is right: the Taliban helped sponsor an attack on an ally who defended us in WWII and whom we might call to defend us again some day. The same was not true of Saddam’s Iraq.
You also mentioned the porous border with Pakistan. The Taliban became a serious threat to Pakistani sovereignty last year.
You also mentioned Saudi Arabia as being responsible for the WTC attack. Saudi Arabia has been fighting its own internal insurgency problems, while trying to find a balance between liberalization and not rocking the boat with the huge Al Q’aeda movement in that country. We’ve seen some of the results outside Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is more vulnerable.
Garry Johnson, it is not a circular argument. Don’t start wars, but once you’re in them, finish them. And the Vietnam war was not lost on the ground in Vietnam; it was lost in America which (rightly or wrongly) pulled the rug out from under the army. I’m not making any comment on whether they should have gone into Vietnam in the first place, but you should finish what you start.
David Sanderson, let’s forget that Somalian pirate attacks and Israeli belligerence haven’t resulted in any invasions, and that the “immense pressure” on N. Korea, even since the sinking of the Cheonan, has been diplomatic at best.
I’m more interested in getting to the basis of your belief that Afghanistan is a greater source of terrorism than Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. You seem to be working logic backward: Afghanistan must be the main offender, because that’s where we invaded.
Again, can you cite some documentary evidence that al Qaeda “sponsored” the Taliban, and that “the Taliban regime, at the time, denied that both Osama bin Landen or Al Quaeda had anything to do with the attack.”
I am DYING to know about this “balance between liberalization and not rocking the boat with the huge Al Q’aeda movement” in Saudi Arabia.
At the risk of joining the greying baby boomers in their culture wars, the idea that Vietnam was lost in the US, not, you know, Vietnam, where the, um, fighting was, is ridiculous.
In terms of hanging by the coat tails of whichever Great Protector has, for their own reasons, given us a bit of protection in the past, this is entirely consistent with our entire military history, from the Boer War on. It’s still embarrassing and pathetic and gives the lie to our absurd militaristic self-conceptions of toughness and independence. Without any real need to be, we volunteer ourselves as satrap to whoever is handing out the lollies. We can be better than this!
(((((Garry Johnson, it is not a circular argument. Don’t start wars, but once you’re in them, finish them. And the Vietnam war was not lost on the ground in Vietnam; it was lost in America which (rightly or wrongly) pulled the rug out from under the army. I’m not making any comment on whether they should have gone into Vietnam in the first place, but you should finish what you start.)))))
James, your logic is completely miscontrued.
So, you are saying that once the mistake of going to war has been realized, we should still remain and fight the war regardless because if we don’t the local inhabitants will suffer even more.
Excuse me, but I must be on some other planet and based on your comments I seriously doubt this subject can even be discussed with any clear logic at all….that is just BIZZARO.
Sancho: there’s not much in the mainstream press, but if you’re interested you can download this article by taking a free trial subscription to Stratfor.
They have other reports too on the internal security problem of Al Q’aeda, which in the past few years has required some military operations of a disturbing size to contain and disarm them.
Gary Johnson, you’re going to have to do better than that.
We can’t pull out now, the terrorists from Northern Pakistan and elsewhere will flat back in and it would be a disaster. What we should be doing is eliminating them from Northern Pakistan, with Pakistani assistance and blessing, and that would end the Afghan issue this year
Australia has many huge problems, one of which is the American alliance (right from the beginning it was a false dichotom)
The problem lies with the average American and their inability to appreciate history.
The second part of this problem lies within the American Military establishment. It/they always have to try and reinvent the wheel.
No one has beaten the Afghans in about a thousand years. Why should America believe she can do it?
There are people here who think the terrain, and it’s difficulty, is a false excuse. To which I would say. Go there yourself. You try fighting the Afghans, and you do it on their terms. You would be lucky to last ten minutes.
Our politicians are weak and fearful, otherwise they would have the gumption to tell America to get nicked.
Venise, I thought the same and I disapproved of the Afghanistan operation at the start. I was also disturbed by gruesome stories from the 1980s, men dismembered or skinned while still alive, just to make a point … a level of brutality shocking even by the appalling standards of modern warfare.
But the performance of the under-strength military force has amazed me. A surprisingly low Australian casualty rate, not because it’s safe but because they are far more proficient than most of the Russians in the 1980s. If they had the troop strength and support they ask for, they could win it.
James McDonald:
That’s interesting James, I was thinking the same thing about you.
Australian casualties (although very regrettable) are always much lower as a percentage of forces employed in recent conflicts (Korea 1950’s, Malaya 1950’s, Vietnam 1960-70’s, Gulf War 1, Iraq War and now Afghan conflict).
This is because they are better trained and commanded, albeit not with the most modern equipment in any of the above conflicts.
Australia has better technology available to reduce / prevent the roadside bombing casualties, and I am surprised it has not been used more widely, must be the terrain.
That’s your evidence, James McDonald? A subscription-only article on Stratfor?
If there was a liberalisation movement in Saudi Arabia it would be all over the news. Greg Sheridan would dine out on it for months.
Who do I email to find out why my posts are being censored?
MEMO TO JAMES MCDONALD:
Al Q’aeda is a figment of the CIA’s imagination and Stratfor is controlled by Mossad.
Sadly there can be no victory in Afganistan.
If the might of the Soviet army (who I’m sure didn’t care too much about human rights, collateral damage and PR) couldn’t prevail in the 1980’s then there is no hope that a ragtag bunch of soldiers from a host of countries who are, in the main, fortified and dug in and make occasional forays into the countryside can win.
Whatever winning is.
Perhaps it means killing everyone opposed to the US. Or maybe it means restoring law and order to a country unused to that and governed by criminals and sworn enemies of the tribe not in power.
We should leave Afganistan - we had no real place going in there and have only suffered as a result. Yes it has given our military a great opportunity to train and gain experience, and our military has performed amazingly well - as it does anytime it is called upon - but its time for us to leave.
The comparisons to Vietnam are interesting.
The US lost the war(at home and on the battlefield) and pulled out. Did it descend into hell and a Communist center to spread its evil over all of Asia and Australia like we were told it would.
No.
And now, after years of rebuilding from the destruction left by the Americans, Vietnam is experiencing a new period of growth and prosperity and a rapidly increasing tourism industry. Dam those lefties.
Who would have thought having B52’s dropping bombs on a country would be bad for the economy and business.
JAMES McDONALD: Unfortunately the Afghani soldier historically is terribly cruel. As are the Afghani people towards animals.
I am happy to be proved wrong, however, I cannot believe the Australian soldier can succeed where so many armies have failed.
Morally, I think the system where our Prime Ministers can just bow to the Americans and dutifully do as they say, stinks.
I want to be light hearted today.
Did you ever read the historical novels of Flashman, by George MacDonald Fraser?
If not, try to track down the one on the great Afghan War. It’s a lot of fun but historically accurate as well.
DAMO, DAMO, DAMO: War is a growth industry!
I won’t deny the cruelty of Afghan soldiers, Venise, but if you have a strong stomach you can do a search for the depressingly common footage of coalition soldiers killing and torturing animals, mostly dogs and puppies.
Grounds for moral superiority aren’t as easily attained as we think.
Aussie servicemen and servicewomen are also volunteers, and have all been volunteers since Vietnam.
Commitment and quality and training = excellence.
Regardless of what you may think about Afganistan, or whatever, we can be mighty proud of our professionals.
Venise
In times of war, who is n’t cruel?
If your well gardened and leafy suburb was suddenly overrun by hoodlums and degenerates, would n’t you be cruel in defence of your nice little patch?
The Pashtuns are beautiful and loving people. Their hospitality to complete strangers is legendary. They only have one rule…don’t look at their women.
Cheers
Gary
GARY JOHNSON: I’ll nit pick on the first point. i didn’t say they were cruel. I said “The Afghani soldier, historically is terribly cruel”. Subtle difference. I was not about to speak about something of which I had had no experience.
I do know they are pitiless towards animals.
Yes, I would be cruel to someone who was attacking me. But I can’t imagine barbequeing (sic) someone over an open fire, or flaying someone alive, or resorting to-even if I did have access to-placing a variety of Mexican cactus which grows with frightening speed. You place your victim on an open frame, stretch the hands and feet out at an angle, then place the cactus underneath. It will grow through the victim.
My cruelty would simply allow me to shoot as many people as possible. Quickly.
Venise, your racism is disgusting. ‘Some’ or even ‘many’ Afghan individuals may be cruel in certain circumstances. That is just as true of any other race. It is also irrelevant to this discussion.
Venise..thought you might like some not so light bedside reading…hehehe
Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jwish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists.
—Navras Aafreedi, academic at the University of Lucknow and member of the Afridis
Venise..thought you might like some not so light bedside reading…hehehe
Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Isreel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists.
—Navras Aafreedi, academic at the University of Lucknow and member of the Afridis
If the Americans invaded us to “liberate” us from Kevin Rudd and the Gang of Four, how would we react?
Oops! Probably a bad example actually.
Every one of the comments here miss the obvious reason why Coalition forces are still in Afghanistan. Terrorism is a global phenomenon and the bad boys don’t need Afghanistan or any other particular country to hide within. The reason the Western nations are staying the course in Afghanistan is the instability of Pakistan. It is very possible that Pakistan could fall into the hands of Islamic facists thereby creating a very big threat to just about the whole world due to the fact that Pakistan has a nuclear weapons capability. Can you imagine the outcome if Islamic facists in Pakistan attacked India or China with nukes? Retaliation by both of those countries would be horrendous for the planet. Bush and Co deserted Afghanistan in 2003 for the disastrous adventure in Iraq (which still doesn’t have a government). If Afghanistan had been kept secure since 2003, then many military and civilian lives would have been spared and we would be much more secure.
Trite, Richard, but with some work it makes sense.
What if a coalition of Arab nations invaded Australia to liberate us from democracy and capitalism and bring us the light of Islam, and if you fight to defend your way of life, the international media brand you a terrorist?
Shoe’s a bit different when it’s on the other foot, no?
We should get out of Howards War NOW!!!!! We should have a vote on it at the next election - Pick a box -Stay or GO. Get out before USA go broke- US Debt is $us 13 TRILLION and is going up at $us 1 Million every 30 seconds. The Wars are great for some US companies bottom line.
Bakerboy speaks the truth
The level of debate here, to be blunt, is abysmal.
The invasion of Afghanistan has no valid legal basis. I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to explain specifically on what basis they believe that.
Additionally, the official story of 9-11 was obviously a fabrication. THREE massive towerblocks collapsed on that day in their own footprint - an event never before or after experienced in history, in the absence of controlled demolition. The buildings must have been be rigged with explosives days, if not weeks, in advance. Those people needed inside access to the buildings. Were those demolitions experts, who used hi-tech explosives at the cutting edge of military-funded science, ‘Islamic extremists’ based in Afghanistan? Only the very credulous believe that story any more.
In the words of St Paul: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
It’s time to put away the childish official story about 9-11. It only stands up to the extent it does because there has been no open debate about its veracity in the mainstream media. The critical view is only ever ridiculed and misreprepesented.
To understand why the Afghan War is illegal - and why any supposed ‘moral justification’ for the 9-11 attacks is also entirely bogus - see:
‘Is the War in Afghanistan Justified by 9/11?’ by David Ray Griffin:
http://edwardrynearson.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/is-the-war-in-afghanistan-justified-by-911/
BAKERBOY: You are very sweet but very naïve. The Americans have bombers in eternal orbit around the earth. They have warships which are constantly patrolling the Persian Gulf, and aircraft carriers capable of delivering thousands of fighting men within twenty-four hours of an incident happening.
However, in a non-nuclear situation, they count on their soldiers to make a ‘presence’ in a country. And when they fail, they add their bombers and helicopters. It is only fair to question the logic of every Oz Prime Minister who grovels to the USA before saying “Here, take them.” How dare America use our troops to fight their wars, as well as their own. And yes, I do know what led us into this position.
What has been rumoured for the past fifty years, and proven to be a fact these past few months, is the vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan-up to and including America’s sacred cow, oil.
To engage in battle in a non nuclear country (yet) conventional warfare, then air warfare is the order of the day. To flatten a nuclear state it is necessary to throw everything you’ve got at it. Which is what will presumably happen in Pakistan if she invokes the dreaded Nuclear option.
A little advice. Always ask why. If someone comes selling a horse for a very cheap price, do you accept it? Or do you ask yourself, “Does he really like me that much? Or is there something wrong with this horse?”
It’s cost about a trillion so far and proved nothing.
Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Isreel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists.
—Navras Aafreedi, academic at the University of Lucknow and member of the Afridis
James McDonald:
Bakerboy is a nice chap, but he is not doing what you say he is.
Venise et al - I am nice and may be naive about some things, but not military matters or geopolitics. I spent 25 years as an officer in the ADF primarily in airspace surveillance and communications intelligence. I am a graduate of the RAAF Staff College at which international affairs are studied in depth and at which students get to talk on and off the record with many influential people. I have held the highest national security clearance possible and have been briefed on the most secret and sensitive communications intelligence gathering operations of the Western world about which I can never speak. I still hold a high level security clearance and have recently worked as a civilian on vital projects for the Australian Army. Now, what were you saying?
BTW, my views expressed here on why we’re in Afghanistan are not just mine but that expressed by most Western countries.
please join Facebook group “Bring our boys home - enough is enough” tell the politicians this stupidity has to end….and David if Afghanistan turns into a terrorist training field then let America handle it considering they were the stupid so and so’s who started it…..
*****or resorting to-even if I did have access to-placing a variety of Mexican cactus which grows with frightening speed.*****
Sorry Venise, there are no fast growing variety Mexican cacti in Afghanistan.
You might find a few in comic books, New Idea, Woman’s Day, or any other throw away non-reading material but not in Afghanistan.
Sure about that? It was touch and go for a while last year and can change rapidly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8016485.stm“>Disarray on Pakistan Taleban threat from a BBC contributor
Punjabi Taliban: A growing threat for Pakistan from Reuters
Check out some of the comments below the first story, like this one:
Regarding the mineral wealth, there are a lot of “if”s about mining companies being able to develop them. A lot of mining companies left Siberia with bloody noses in the 1990s.
But with careful handling and luck, it just might give the Afghanis a chance to develop a surplus economy, and a sustainable democracy. Contrary to popular belief, the former is a necessary condition for the latter.
Sorry, my last comment (awaiting moderation because I stuffed up a link) is addressed to Gary
Venise - also, you grossly overestimate the power and efficiency of US forces - ‘bombers in eternal orbit’??? WTF ‘aircraft carriers delivering thousands of men in 24 hours’ - aircraft carriers carry aircraft, not soldiers. From my experience working with Yanks, they have good technology but can be very disorganised.
BTW, I’m happy for Australia to pull out of Afghanistan, but our pollies would need to make it clear to voters what the ramifications might be.
wow, all that lithium will come in handy for the next wave of high-powered lithium batteries needed in the US post-oil. Obama just announced a huge funding push for electric motor and battery research and development also, and recent estimates were that lithium would run out before we could replace petrol engines en masse.
And to think that the US were arming and training the Taliban against the Russians in the 1980s, built them up, supplied weapons, and disregarded any issues of cultural difference that are now meant to be disturbing. It’s the 19th century Great Game all over again, where now Caspian Sea hydrocarbon resources are at stake, along with the $1 trillion in local minerals (and we were told Afghanistan had no appreciable resources of their own, so THAT couldn’t be the reason we were invading. The only theory left was oil and gas pipelines out of the Caspian Sea thru Pakistan to the Gulf for Anglosphere interests.)
The greatest thing at stake in the old Great Game appeared to be creating a barrier between Britain’s resource interests in India and the encroaching Russian empire from the north. Seems a little more at stake this time round. It’s all just geopolitics, there are no terrorists or principles at stake. You’re living in 1984.
And it’s not clear who was behind 9/11, there’s too many anomalies in the whole thing to believe Al Qa’eda did it. It was probably a false flag inside job. There’s a long list of suspects — follow the trail of means, motive and opportunity. (Hope you’re reading this, CIA. We know what you did last summer.)
Oh, for goodness’ sake. It’s not enough everyone’s an expert on military strategies, now we’ll never hear the end of the conspiracy theories, only being there so the CIA can rip the Afghanis off.
Marilyn says the war has already cost a trillion. I haven’t checked that figure, but if it’s in the ballpark then where is the profit margin? A trillion spent to get a (speculative) trillion back in minerals, maybe, someday, not counting the further cost of stabilizing the country and setting up some actual mines?
Give it a rest.
Ok, it’s serious time. Whoever said that Iraq is the second most stable democracy in hte Middle East is being disingenuous … even allowing for the fact that being ‘the second most’ in the Middle East is much like saying that terminal anal cancer is worse than terminal brain cancer. Even allowing for that, you can still be blown up in the street from a car bomb. Yes, it’s better than it was. But successful? Not even close.
We can’t just go. But we can’t stay longer. If Mr Rudd or Mr Smith is smart, then they’ll follow the US timeline. What’s the odds they will?
A $US trillion may well be the appropriate number. Where it is being spent and who ends up with the greenbacks are the important considerations.
Much of waht marilyn has posted in the past few hours could well be nonsense, but the stories are not easily denied.
The US pays gangs answering to members of the extended family of the President of Afganistan to provide safe passage along the highways? These same gangs, mafia-like, stage mock raids to convince the Americans that their money is well spent?
There is so much money sloshing around that I am convinced that the Americans have bought their way into this conflict and have tried and failed to buy their way back out again. As well, that this money finds its way into Taleban hands. We, Australians, are being dragged along for the ride.
If this is not so, then why do we hear so very little from our Ministers of Defence and the remainder of the Government? Why is nothing reported from the front? Why do our government and the Howard one before it not state clearly why our troops are over there, why our national treasure is being spent in this way, why sons, brothers, fathers, sisters and daughters are exposed to mortal danger? It is months, years, since a position paper was presented publicly by the powers that be to support this effort and the dying.
Why? That’s what we all ask.
Why? For what goal? When will it finish?
30 years, which I have read in the US press as being probable, is simply too long. If the plan does not have a timeline expressed in goals, costs, efforts and single years, it is worthless.
We Australians represent about 1% of this earth’s commerce; even less of its population. Why do we keep trying to punch above our weight? We have enough problems to attend to here at home.
@BAKERBOY
##BTW, I’m happy for Australia to pull out of Afghanistan, but our pollies would need to make it clear to voters what the ramifications might be.##
What might those ramifications be?
It’s exaggeration to call Iraq a stable democracy yet. But it may get there.
Something that most people realize without quite knowing the reason, is that countries don’t just become democratic by giving them the vote. The reason is actually well established by research but not widely recognized: a sustainable economy with surplus wealth is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a stable democracy. That’s why the tenuous reports of mineral wealth are potential good news for Afghanistan.
Now if the Americans were just out to rip off the Afghani minerals, they would have cut a deal with the Taliban years ago, offering more money than Osama could, and saved themselves a whole lot of trouble. They didn’t, so this war is not about ripping off mineral wealth.
The fact that the Americans have to work with gangsters is highly regrettable. A lot of westerners objected when ex-KGB people in the new Russia get all the top jobs — but there was no other workforce there with the background for organizing things. In Russia, it’s KGB; in Afghanistan, it’s gangsters.
It would be different if Ahmad Shah Massoud were still alive, but he’s gone, so you have to work with what you’ve got.
Yes, Saudi Arabia has become so democratic due to its natural resources. Whereas poor old Sweden and Iceland with limited natural resources remain such backward, autocratic regimes.
It is ‘regrettable’ that the US must work with gangsters, but as the sterling example of Russia shows, this is a transition period only, and we now have the glorious wonders of contemporary Russian democracy under Putin. I suppose that some Pakistani leaders would say it’s ‘regrettable’ that they have to work with Taliban gangsters too….. hmmmm
To suggest that the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was both legally and morally justified is one of the more fatuous comments made by Mr Keane who has an unfortunate tendency to promote arguments without the least idea what he is talking about. The invasion was justified by the Bush (and Howard) governments saying that Afghanistan was the origin of the attacks of 11 September 2001 masterminded by their temporary resident Osama bin Laden. The Afghan government asked for proof of that allegation which was never forthcoming. The FBI admits they have no hard evidence linking bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks. Bin Laden himself denied it. Proof was irrelevant to Bush and Howard because the decision to invade had been made prior to 9/11.
But even if bin Laden was responsible it would not have justified the attack, invasion and occupation. Mr Keane seems oblivious to the requirements of international law which in this case arises out of Art. 51 of the UN Charter. Last time I looked Australia was a signatory to that charter. The circumstances under which one state can attack another are strictly limited. The circumstances surrounding the events of 9/11, even on the Bush/Howard version, do not comply with those requirements. The legal arguments can be found in any number of places, but Mr Keane might like to start with O’Sullivan [2001] New Law Journal 1778; and Arend & Beck International Law and the Use of Force (rev ed. 2009).
If the attack and occupation were illegal in international law, which most legal scholars not in hock to either the Obama or Rudd regimes will attest is the case, then it follows that our presence there is illegal.
No mealy mouthed post facto justifications such as “bringing democracy, liberating women etc” can escape that essential fact.
It is Mr Keane’s argument that is legally and morally flawed (not to mention bereft of historical knowledge) and it is long past time that Crikey recognised the fact and ceased promoting such arrant nonsense.
Saudi Arabia demonstrates the problem of what’s called “trust fund states” where the people are not involved in the extraction of wealth from the ground. That’s why I said earlier “with careful handling and luck”.
Russia is developing much better than you think, democracy or not. Don’t believe all you read about Putin, most of which comes from evil shits like Boris Berezovsky, probably the real killer of Litvinenko, and one of the billionaire oligarchs who were so shocked when Putin turned out not to be their puppet and have been largely controlling the British press ever since.
On the subject of gansters, don’t forget that Nelson Mandela’s ANC came to power with a lot more tribal gansters and hard men than peace activists under its umbrella.
Just wait to see what they say when we have another Bali, all the mealy mouths will come out crying and say where was the Gument. And I say another Bali because we are dealing with murderous fundamentals who don’t care about anyone especially themselves to prove that they can do it any time or anyplace to anyone.
So be afraid, our troops need our support not all this nonsense that journalists in their comfortable leather chairs in Canberra spruik, I can’t understand if they know so much why didn’t they become politicians they have all the answers don’t they?
It’s a bit different shooting your mouth off than really getting in there and doing something constructive.
All the best to our troops, just shut up and get behind them, most of you who whinge about their deployment wouldn’t have the guts to go.
So just sit back and let them look after your safety and don’t complain if anything happens.
@ James.
And why would Afghanistan be any different from Saudi Arabia? Well, I’d say it’d be more like Nigeria or Sierra Leone than Norway, because democracy comes before, not, as your fervid imagination believes, after, economic development (as opposed to foreign-enabled wealth extraction).
@ Lorraine
Our brave soldiers involved an illegal war have killed far more innocents in Afghanistan that were killed in Bali. And they are not keeping us safe, in fact they are exposing us to more danger. I feel sorry for most of them who I’m sure have no delusions about what they’re involved in (they have to obey order after all or face extremely punitive sanctions from the military) and no particular quarrel with the others - its the Howard and Rudd governments who deserve the approbrium - but I do dislike people saying to question the war is to attack the soldiers and we can’t question the war because our boys are over there and you’re a big sook anyway and you wouldn’t have the guts and, and, and….
@Lorraine What do the villagers in Afghanistan being killed by the war there have to do with Bali??????
Different country, different people.
A bomb goes off in some beachside bar in Bali and thats justrification for invading Afghanistan - a country 6,800km away???
Give it a break!
Bob, yes that could happen too. It could go either way. But Afghanistan went through a period of modernization and nation-building through the 50s, 60s and 70s, and there are a lot of very educated Afghanis, both in the cities and in the diaspora overseas (including here in Australia).
The bombers there had al-Quaida, and related militant Islamist links, that extended across the world.
Ordinary people have links across the world. It should not be that hard to grasp that terrorists too have such links.
Nice logic there - so if I as an individual commit a violent act on someone (baring in mind that the Bali bombings were the work of a few individuals) then that is justification for multiple countries going to war and invading 2 completely different countries.
Thats the problem here - most acts of “terrorism” are the acts of an isolated few individuals yet those in power want to believe that there is some kind of James Bond worldwide Agency of Evil that has the equivalent power of a state and can be removed through the act of state against state war.
That couldn’t be further from the truth - and its the reason that hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars have been wasted in Iraq & Afghanistan.
They are trying to fight something that doesn’t exist. Its like carpet bombing the NT trying to win the “War on the Cane Toad”. Sounds insane - but thats what the US and Australia and the rest of the “coalition” are trying to do.
@ James M, and there are no educated Saudis or Nigerians? Your reasoning is fatuous.
@ David S So should we bomb the terrorists in Washington too? What about those in London? Or is it just the relatively harmless (in terms of actual effect rather than thought crime) ones we should bomb, as well as the civilian populace of the country they happen to be in?
David is spot on…
There are also too many people prepared to offer an opinion about Iraq/Afghanistan without a solution. I wonder whether the, up to 2 million Kurds killed in mass genocide at the hands of Sadaam Hussein, feel more or less secure than when he was alive? I have never heard anyone that is against the Iraq/Afghanistan wars offer a solution.
There are many many many documentaries available online about the terrorist cells in Afghanistan that I suggest that some of you watch. We need to increase rather than decrease numbers in Afghanistan to avoid another Vietnam situation.
I had a friend that worked for World Vision (I think it was) and had a role as a project manager in Afghanistan somewhere. The stories he told of men walking around with no noses and no ears due to Al Qaeda (and, other related terrorist groups) torture was horrendous.
Funny, I’ve never heard solutions from people who are pro-war in Afghanistan or Iraq, unless you count bombs for peace that is. I’d say the million babies dead as a result from western sanctions in Iraq in the ’90s might not feel too warm and fuzzy towards us, nor the hundreds of thousands since our invasion. Likewise the victims of the warlords who now run Afghanistan again, with our backing and support. Nor those dissdents boiled alive by the Uzbekistan regime, our new-found friend post 11/09.
Or are those just ‘regrettable’ instances of our broadly wonderful involvement, while the other side’s brutality is proof of their intrinsic, intractable evil.
This trading of horror stories is as grown up as the old “The Hun rapes nuns” propaganda from WWI.
Regardless of who did what in the past, it is now us who is doing the killing, presiding over anarchy and drug-running and making life generally very unpleasant for ordinary people, we who hold ourselves, supposedly, to a much higher standard, we who tell the rest of the world they should be democratic, they should embrace western values, they should defend human rights, they should trust us, that we’re not there for the oil, or the gas, or, or, or…, we’re just there to help because we care.
Uzbekistan
Hun
pro-war
11/09
boiled alive
babies dead
bombs for peace
Just checking which word continually alerts the censors, sorry, moderators.
Crikey, you have to do something about your completely opaque and inconsistent ‘moderation’.
Aptly-named Napoleon Dynamite demands that opponents of the 9-year old illegal war provide ‘solutions’.
Here are a few suggestions.
The ‘solution’ to engaging in illegal wars is not to do that.
The ‘solution’ to fighting an unwinnable immoral war is to stop.
Al Qaida is largely a western intelligence agency myth as anyone who has been poaying attention is well aware. As ‘Al Qaida’ was clearly framed for the 9-11 atrocities, all other alleged ‘Al Qaida’ atrocities must be considered suspect. The prototype for Osama Bin Laden is Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell’s book 1984.
The ‘solution’ to swallowing war propaganda is to spit it out.
Can I take it that all those who believe Jihadist organisations “don’t exist” also believe the WTC destruction was an inside job by the CIA and that no plane hit the Pentagon? Yes, we’ve heard this before. No, not interested in hearing it again.
Bob the Builder, I was discussing your earlier statement which was this:
I mentioned a large number of educated Afghani people, and you compared this to Nigeria, which is the fastest growing economy in the world and will soon be the next India. Then in the same breath you mention Sierra Leone, a failed state. By mentioning them together you imply they are in similar condition; if that’s what you think, you could not be more wrong.
The way in which some mineral-rich states become free while others become feudal tyrranies is explained very clearly by Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.
Democracy alone cannot create sustainable freedom, although in the short term it can sometimes be used to overthrow a tyrant (as it almost did in Zimbabwe). Sustainable freedom is developed by rule of law, separation of state powers, independence of the media, protection of the vulnerable, protection of private property, and so on. Without these things you have mob rule which can be just as cruel and irrational as any tyrant. With these things you have constitutional liberalism which, when combined with sustainable economic growth and education, can eventually be secured by democracy — the final separation of powers.
See this article by Zakaria on the difficulty of creating constitutional liberalism — freedom for the people — in an oil state.
I forgot to say … an example of illiberal democracy which does nothing for its citizens? You named it yourself: Sierra Leone.
@ James MacDonald
Can I take it that all those who believe Jihadist organisations “don’t exist” also believe the WTC destruction was an inside job by the CIA and that no plane hit the Pentagon? Yes, we’ve heard this before. No, not interested in hearing it again.
1/ Misrepresenting an argument before you dismiss it is a rhetotical trick that impresses no-one except the foolish.
2/ Stalwart defenders of the official narrative about 9-11 rarely do want to engage in any serious debate about the veracity of that case. The official inquiries themselves were custom-designed to avoid contrary evidence.
3/ Every day, more and more people become aware of compelling evidence disproving the official saga of 9-11. The demand for truth and justice cannot be brushed aside in the long run.
By now, well over 1,000 professional architects and engineers - and counting - have been willing to put their reputations on the line to demand a satisfactory inquiry into 9-11. They are aware of the flat-out impossibility of the official narrative, which provided the bogus pretext for invading Afghanistan.
See http://www.ae911truth.org/
Syd: LOL … you defend exactly the theory that I supposedly misrepresented the “What Jihadists?” argument to be dependent on.
There are many fatal flaws in your “911 Truth” theory; just one of them is that any such conspiracy in America would have to come from the far right wing, people who are in no doubt about the relationship between economic strength and military strength. Such people would never dream of bringing down the WTC and almost precipitating an American recession, when a symbolic target such as Disneyland or the Statue of Liberty would have served the same purpose without threatening the funds that the CIA etc depend on. Another fatal flaw is the number of people that would need to be involved — we would have heard from people claiming to be on the inside of the conspiracy by now. There are many others, and I’m not going to get bogged down in debating them, because experience shows this is one of those theories whose adherents will insist on believing it no matter what.
So many comments. My first point is that it is political and military incompetence to enter any theatre of conflict without a clear-cut exit strategy. It is conspiratorial to enter into armed conflict when there has been no national discussion with the people and in which the “so labelled”
enemy has not been able to address the people of the aggressive nations. It is criminal to engage with an aggressor who’s reputation for the mass murder of millions of civilians in inflicting “democracy” on them. It is wickedly arrogant to perceive other methods of government as intrinsically evil when a look at our own and particularly USA and Israel shows corruption, bigotry, disastrous “justice” systems and governments which are subjects of alien power-play, the de Rothschild planetary capital banking organism in which the then seven resistant capital banks are labelled “the axis of evil” It is intellectually leprosised to believe, with all the evidence and “disappeared evidence” that the bombings leading up to “911” and “911” itself was not a false flag conspiracy between USA and Israel..and Israel’s numerous agents at the time fled USA after many active Israeli conspirators were arrested in criminal situaitons and then almost immediately allowed to return to Israel. There is no substantial question other than that this is the case. The purpose, as with the connived attack on the USS liberty was to have USA excused for Israel’s 45 years of demanding the USA invade and attack the arabs which, as they colonised Palestine and committed apalling atrocities against them and the Egyptians.
Having ignored the UN’, always intended to be a plaything and front of Russia and USA in committing atrocity and in protecting Israel and the New world Order from discipline but which occasionally shows some recognition of crimes against humanity USA continued on its ghastly pre-911 military actions. The civilian population mesmerised by TV and Sport has little time for bothering about the massacre of arabs and christians have the absurd indoctrination that “the promised land” and the “chosen people” strategy is factual. People point the finger at the inquisition, and rightly so but the creators of the NWO have initiated and financed slaughter at leat 1200 times greater than the most extreme totalling of the Inquistion’s. The tragedy is that we elect governments which, on both sides, do as they are told by the central banking system and the zionist committees here and it is no different in the western world elsewhere.
This involves our holocaust, our blood sacrifice, to achieve an advantage. There is military strategy competence in small degree but the commitment of military in support of the Israel-American pact, so utterly discredited if one seeks eclectic knowledge rather than being a TV fiend indoctrinated and nervously deranged by imported American Z grade entertainment programmes, cultural rationality and violence. We have become so dgraded as a culture that we have by and large adopted Americanisms…see just as one lighweight example how many streets have “NO THRU ROAD” signs…and I could go on for pages about the litany of the coca cola conquest come to fruition. This is barely “Australia” any more. The new generations have never seen the “once was” Australia, they see only the artifice.
Our military goes into what we call “war”..it is no “war” it’s an Attilla styled invasion complete with the worst atrocities. A lady who’s statements on the lads in Afghanistan could not have replies but I fully comprehend her anguish and her desires and her critiques and it gives me hope that there is still emotion “out there”. She is correct for the most place but the fact remains that invasion will never find lasting peace and that it is wasted money to have diplomats who must not “negotiate with” or “have dialogue with” terroists. If Fiji invaded NSW and accused them of “terrosism’ in Fiji, would that be credible?…well it’s as credible as the invasions of Iraq…based in every case but particularly the last case…on well exposed lies..yet no one did anything against it, Howard and Latham just fell into line. We have to offer compassion to our soldiers, and demand they be compassionate, but do you really expect the people invaded to not kill australians who support their worst enemy, USA/Israel? I am gratified and I feel certain it goes to our, however tarnished image, that slaughter of Australians has not occurred on a far greater scale. Yes we have lads and women with great skills and they are ordered to serve criminal causes . I point out that thousands of Jewish people have been jailed in Israel for refusing to serve against Palestinians. A soldier can refuse to serve and take the primitive consequences of his or her primate government’s ire.The Special Air Service has a dictum “don’t hate your enemy” which is a derivation of Musache’s strategies of swordfighting centuries ago. …though it is essential in my view it does reduce politically strategic killing to a human abbattoir. Is killing in a frenzy of “nationalism” hurt, anger or subservience worse of better than cool calm and collected killing.
Only good example by us all can win the peace but the countries which need peace, want peace are mere pawns in the Central Banking conspiracy to make money by implimenting and financing all sides in war. There is no desire in the puppet masters of the US presidency or in Israel for peace…that is why no real paece effort has ever come from Israel. The only Khazar who strategically tried to engage in a peace process devised by two Nordic men (who were then, boorishly sidelined to allow USA to pretend Israel formulated the plan) was assassinated for it.It is critical to take on board that Israel is not Jewish, nor is what it says…it is a state whence the reorganising of the middle east (see Condaleeeza Rice’s “Plan for the New Middle East”(a remapping) and the disempowerment of the arab races through selling faulty early warning equipment to them, by assassinating them at willm by bribing and corrupting them, by turning one against the other. Israel was not only engaged in covert operations in Iraq, a model nation, far freer and safer than USA, as did the CIA to enrage, provoke and demonise Hussein and then repeat a small number of his arrocities so it sounded as though it was continuous. Hussein’s stable government and freedom of religion and educaton of all including women was a massive threat to Israel. It survived two invasions though most murdered of the million plus who starved to death or died of disease prior to “911” did not disable the Nation, The CIA plotted assassination which they then ran away from, the Israeli concocting of evidence which saw innocent peole hanges and jailed for life is the real indicator of where the evil lies in our world.
The massive fear and anxiety the Western Alliance (includes our governments) installand engender in these Middle East nations…and has done even in democratic nations (eg el Salvador) and the assassinations it finances, arms and supports ..is no way of achieving peace but then…there;s a lot more profit in war and a lot more political gain.Our people in Afghanistan are doing the best they canI have no doubt, having accepted command, nevertheless they are being destroyed inside as were the ANZACS in France in WW11…hardened, conditioned, bent out of shape to keep functioning as humans operating in a killing field operation for the gutless, conspiratorial, narcissistic politicians who organise these debacles. It was well said that war will be averted if the politicians are sent to the battlefront. Ours are “saving the world”….I don’t think so…and until this peurile but so political mentality of “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is demanded by us all as being struck off the language by us, the people and until we demand our government serve us rathe rather than alien organisms such as the bilderbergers and their accompanying zionists both of which control media. “Terrorists” are as much people as we are…but become brutilised by religious perversion and by international condemnation hatred bigotry,propaganda and invasion.They can talk and will talk even though we have essentially shut down communication.
We have no exit strategy, we are however less controlled by USA on the field since “the Bravo Two Zero” titled SAS mission was crippled by deliberate misupply of materiel the US military. One result of it was the assassination of an innocent family . Who cares, they are only towel heads”..well actually think about what you would feel and want to do and how enraged you’d be if it was your family assassinated. They are just like us but with exytraordinary resilience. We shouldn’t be in Afghanistan but the one thing we can do when there is to show compassion, to be gentle at every opportunity, to not hate, to show respect, to show good example so that the open wounds or even the car tissue will not sit on those people of of today and tomorrow whom the western “so called “civiliastion” brutalises in its quest for world domination for a single government run by bankers. That’s not to say we should not engage in military operations or that we should ever treat our soldiers as was done during the Vietnam invasion, it is to say that before these political puppets we call our “government” engage us in invasions ..or in wars…every attempt possible must be made..and not “diplomatically”…but by genuine talk arranged with “the enemy” with genuine people, you, me. with a view to avoiding’ armed conflict. I understand the blinkered vision of Muslims especially the CIA and banker generated extremists, how could I not, our own religious fanatics are no better. The generation of sysbols of things like “Al q’ada” and “osama bin Laden”…a close business associate of the Bush administration which USA and Israel use to generate war and atrocity
In closing “pulling our men out” may not do the good we might think. Bush’s appalling military incompetence and brutality was dramatically reshaped by an Australian Duntroon graduate.We must however if our men stay ensure they are an independant unit which can be publicly debriefed on return and ordered to tell the truth.Yes “casualties” occur on civilians through overreaction or soldiers controlled by “chemical substances” and of course there is retaliation…we are the enemy, we are the invaders…and we should all never forget that every casualty is a real person no different from your own child. Australians cannot expect to be in an American invasion and not be killed but I am appalled at the crocodile tears and downcast eyes and tragic faces on the hypocrites and conniving cowards who send them their then attend their funerals to win politicxal brownie points, Ten Australians killed against 700,000 Iraqi murdered Iraqis…ten Austraians compared with the demonic stuffing of numerous of Iraqis into containers and leaving them in the desert sun is a very tiny number, though each has a family and had a life and dreams. Iknow what it’s like being in a container in the sun…it is just horrific and terrifying if locked-in. Personally I think we should approach “the Taliban” without any guile and try to conduct an extended negotiaion forum in a place of comparative safety …and to hell with the USA…with a view to our strategic and honorable withdrawl on the basis that they will genuinely stop all extension of Muslim proselitisation into any neighbouring country. We have to somehow bring people into the fold, people who know we are frauds and liars in politics but who also know that we are a people as well as a government who really want to see the Afghanis and the Iraqis and Palestinians empowered, respected and contented.
@ James MacDonald, who wroter: “experience shows this is one of those theories whose adherents will insist on believing it no matter what.”
That seems to apply in your case James.
The straw man case you ‘demolish’ is full of unwarranted assumptions.
Anyhow, people can follow up the links I’ve cited if they are interested and form their own opinions.
Donate to RAWA. Secular feminist organisations for the motherfreaking epic win.
Doesn’t anyone find it idiotic that a survey is conducted when soldiers are killed? Of course people will view the war more negatively, people died! Afghanistan is a necessary war against whackos, Iraq is the dodgy one we wanted nothing to do with.
A point for James MacDonald..in fact numerous people aare known to have been involved in the twin towers activity and they were Israelis. They abandoned USA in droves after some were arrested with explosives in a truck and then set free…..The Israelis awaiting the attack with professional cameras sitting on top of a truck danced and sang at the destruction. They were arrested then freed. The scarpered. I suggest on Israeli form and known action ding just this , that the towers could have been outfitted with detonators and explosives at the time of construction. I’d say “more than likely”.
The profiteer of it all was the de Rothschild/Rockefeller/Oppenheim empire but so also was lessee Col Silverstein. He could well have allowed “maintenance crews to install detonators but personally I think the twin towers calamity has been long in the planning and strategic explosives for demolition were inplace from the time of construction.
There is uncertainty as to US Airforce involvement in the whole event but little uncertainty about Israeli actions on the day and leading up to the day. . The ‘crash” into the Pentagon was an outright lie. The third “crashlanded airplane disappeared without a trace never to be mentioned again, The concotion was simply not good enough, but it didn’t have to be, all needed was to have the mutt headed, hand on heart jingoistic American population fired into a national frenzy of fear and anger so Bush could do what the Israelis and the cenral bank wished…invade the middle east.That’s why “we” are in Afghanistan The fact we had a whistle blower, Andrew Wilkie who was sacked and derided for telling the truth that the USA stories on Iraq were hogwash is a matter of serious concern.
Unfortunately we also have a head of defence forces who seems to me to be somewhat psychotic as has been several times exemplified. …Whistleblower Wilkie undercut the “man of steel” as well as the mendacious Butler…who really was maltreated later….and yet Howard still persevered in invading another two countries for the USA and Israel.
Latham, Beasley and Rudd still support it yet they could not but know they are serving the evil regimes of the New Order unless they are simply bionic and cannot read anything which doesn’t suit their masters’ purposes.
There can be little doubt that the broad picture of US/Israel conspiracy in enacting “911” is quite visible. It was qute clear fromBush’s face when informed in a childrens’ school of the attacks that he was expecting them. Yes it was a conspiracy by what is rather nonsensically termed “the right ” or “ultra-right” and if you examine the detail you’ll see why I draw that conclusion.
I have raised issues for a point of people changing this world by becoming less anal about government indoctrination being a symbol of a citizen’s “trustworthyness” . As I said eleswhere it’s time to finally say “you will serve us, we will pay you and we will excuse some of your minor misdeeds , but you wil in fact from now on serve us…we refuse to accept globalisation serfdom, the sell off of Australia,the perversion of education, lies, military dictatorship, staged “global melt downs, or such issues…”you will serve and serve well or you will pay a penalty in the courts” should be a part of the “swearing-in” . To the mining giants and their fabulous personal wealth its time to say “enough is enough” or competently nationalise the mines…..which in no way precluded proper management. Like Mitterand I think we should also nationalise the Reserve Bank.,,and keep it nationalised and responsible primarily to the people of this Nation who have been driven into the ground by its policies supporting the capitalist superiority myth..
I am a great lover of this country with a family history of great service to it and I am not trying to do anything but arouse interest in people to go checking “eclectically” the vast amount of material available on Afghanistan and the Iraq focussed ‘911” conspiracy and in fact the entire government arsenals of deception on all sides and then “stand up and be counted.” I am simply also hoping that this shallow minded knee jerk partiality to one government or another will be substituted-for by a willing ness to become seriously educated and to step out o ths parochially minded approach to politics. We are a puppet in a global conspiracy by an entity that owns virtually all the currency of this world and which has an agenda involving disciplined control of government militiary and media….and thus easily able to impliment completely one night solvable …were actually fixing it the objective, which it is not,, …..Issues such as the “global melt down” fraud are from the Capital Bank arsenal of the new world order. Rockefeller told us why in 1994. Chase it all up, you might be surprised and if you read “the other side of deception” (Viktor Ostrovsky) and “Profits of War (Ari ben Menashe) I doubt you’ll ever doubt a global conspiracy featuring USA and Israel and other satellites. An examination of the de Rothschild timeline and numerous histories of the FOI extracted” background to WW1 and WW11 might give you some motivation in taking a deep interest and having the courage to noisily and effectively and relentlessly protest the forelock tugging actions of our politicians,
@ BLOWTORCH Time for a Bex and a lie down mate. This is simplistic, fervid rubbish. In amongst there are some points of truth, but they are discredited by their association with the rest of the dribble.
Bakerboy,
I am all for defence when it comes to defending Australia but I am not at all for imperialist flights of fancy to satisfy the ambitions of a global banking elite. To be sure the British relinquished Australia to the Yanks after WWII (and they do believe they own this little backwater satrap with its abundant resources); but it is about time we developed some measure of independence in a Machiavellian kind of way. Remember the hoo hah when Alex Downer said we had to balance the interests of China and the US. Our US masters were on the phone to the PM in two seconds. They didn’t like their slave state thinking independently.. Remember when Whitlam was PM and pulled the troops from Vietnam. Within 18 months he was out on his ear and apparently from what I have read, the only time the CIA has directly interfered in Australian politics. (Our current PM would not dare offend the Americans maybe in fear of more direct interference)
Dear Bakerboy,
When Bilderberger and major insider, Henry Kissinger believes that military men are “dumb stupid animals” and expendable then I am inclined to the view that blind loyalty to your political masters is possibly misguided. You make take some comfort in the probability that this mentality is genetically programmed (most military men come from military men) or the result of a vexatious conditioning regime. You don’t believe me?
From Woodward and Bernstein’s “The Final Days” (1976). Here is the complete paragraph excerpted from pages 194-195 of the second paperback edition (1994).
“In Haig’s (Alexander) presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy. Kissinger often took up a post outside the doorway to Haig’s office and dressed him down in front of the secretaries for alleged acts of incompetence with which Haig was not even remotely involved.” Don’t you think this guy has just a little too much power?
Now the other Trilateralist and Bilderberg attendee of note, Polish aristocrat Zbigniew Brzezinski writes about how he goaded the Russians into invading Afghanistan and the CIA created Al Qaeda and the Taliban to resist them using “their man” Tim Osman (alias Osama Bin Laden) of the same family with extensive business and personal ties to the Skull and Bones inspired Carlisle group. I ask that you consider the information you have been privy to at the “highest level” is but one echelon in a multi-tiered information matrix.
Afghanistan in my view is just another phony war, as Vietnam was just a phony war, to gain control of the only cash flow going these days –drugs. (Read former FBI chief William Ruppert - Crossing the Rubicon). Sorry, there is also prostitution and slavery but they are controlled out of other locations which along with drugs were in my opinion the reason for the Bosnian War. These guys don’t are about people – they care about acquiring power and maintaining it at any cost.
The Russians know this and write about it often but you won’t catch the alternative view from the talking heads in the controlled media spewed at us by the six Trilateralist global media groups. The oil pipeline I believe to be a diversion. Pakistan a location that cannot go to thee Russians. Again from Brzezinski books, the control of the Caucasus and its oil and gas resources, or more importantly preventing Russia from controlling it, will be the reason for the next major war. Not Iran. Iran is merely a diversion, as is North Korea. But a war with Russia and China over the Caucasus is definitely on the cards. The State Department which is replete with dual citizens is regularly beating those drums. Russia has now built a pipeline which is now only 2500 kilometres from China. When it happens, the disturbances in Kirghistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will start to make sense. Whoever controls these states will control the resources fed into China and India. With only 2500 kilometres to go, Russia and its potential Caucasian satellites will be able to supply China all the oil and gas it needs and there goes the Anglo American order.
Apropos 911 guys you might also like to listen to David Cameron’s recent address to his troops as to why they are in Afghanistan – “it’s a war of obligation. On 911 when the twin towers were blown up……” what!!Oops!
http://www.youtube.com/user/NufffRespect#p/a/f/0/bWWHtC1CIi0
Niconlo
Not true, Australia played a significant part in escalating US involvement in Vietnam. We wanted the US heavily evolved in containing communism in South East Asia, our area of strategic threat. Deploying the ADF in order to contain communist threats in SEA was a fundamental element of the “forward defence” strategy we employed at the time, as was our commitment to the Indonesian confutation and long standing military presence in Malaysia.
Blowtorch
Wow, just wow…..
ENGINERINGREALITY
This is untrue. Although most “terrorist” cells are indeed small, high capability operations are often supported by much larger infrastructure. The money, training and support necessary for an operation of the scale and complexity of 9/11 is substantial and realistically “a few individuals” could not hop of accomplishing that level of destruction - If you accept that 9/11 was the work of Al Qaida that is. All of that support infrastructure has to exist somewhat in geographical space, Afghanistan provided that geographical space. The logic behind the invasion isn’t hard to follow; to attack the capability take away the geographical space that supporting infrastructure occupies.
There is a difference between international “terrorism” and the home grown variety, 9/11 was much closer to the work of say a foreign intelligence agency - aka Pan Am 103 - than Bali or London. But even unsophisticated operations like Bali or London required some level of supporting infrastructure such as training and funding. Therefore successful “terrorist” operations are never simply conducted by “a few individuals” in a vacuum, there is always some for of organization involved.
Anyway the state on state aspect of the GWOT has far more to do with geopolitical outcomes than combating terrorism.
Bob the Builder
Define a “legal” war for me would you? The very term seems like an oxymoron to me.
This is a false argument. The soft infrastructure of capitalism which a healthy democratic process relies on - such as a vibrant free press - DOES require a certain level of economic development in order to function. Yet in many ways those non market institutions which allow economic development to foster require democratic process. Its not one or the other, democratization and industrialisation/economic development go hand in hand in this respect.
James K
Iraq was/is in no way a success. Maybe if you call averting disaster a success.
The US objective in Iraq was to end up with a stable, strong US ally capable of containing Iran and aiding the US domination of the middle east. What they ended up with is a weak, fractured Iraq incapable of containing Iranian influence, hostile to the US and dominated by foreign stakeholders (Saudi’s and Iranian’s). The situation now is worst for the US that it was in 1999. How you call that a success I’m not exactly sure.
David Sanderson
An admirable sentiment but unfortunately not one reflecting reality. The fact of the matter is every state reserves the right to initiate warfare, offensive warfare, if their interests are at stake. Initiating conflict does not some how “de-legitimize” a nation state in the international system. Did Russia loose any significant international influence after the Georgian war, or did it gain influence? Was Israel’s legitimacy threatened by the invasion of Gaza or Lebanon? What about the six day war?
Offensive war may be a no-no for the intelligencia of western liberal democracies, but in the world of geopolitics the effects are not quite as clear cut as you imagine.
@BOB THE BUILDER, don’t be a killjoy. Reading Blowtorch is tremendously entertaining stuff. Kind of like Tamas’s posts but without the numbers.
@ Rohan LOL!! I suppose we need some left loonies to balance out the overwhelming preponderance of right loonies!
@SYD WALKER, RICHARD WILSON & ESPECIALLY BLOWTORCH
I could hear the pin drop…could you?
Dear BlowTorch
Just to let you know that both Julie and I concurr with you on everything you said.
Yours Sincerely
Kevin & Julie Harris
JAMES McDONALD: You, along with all right-wing thinkers make the observation that because the Americans won “The Battle of the Coral Sea” they and they alone saved us from being run over by the Japanese. (The Americans saved the land of Oz)
It would be a fruitful course of action for you to imagine what Australia was like in the 1940s.
A very small population.
No great mining companies ripping up the ground in WA or in Northern Queensland.
Indeed no mineral wealth at all.
The vast distances between the sea and our non-existent northern cities.
No airfields big enough to take scores of aircraft.
No roads worthy of the name.
A Japan denuded of all serviceable ships, the ones that were available were tied down in the Pacific.
Ditto their aircraft.
And a lovely plan called The Brisbane Line.
What did we have that the Japanese would have wanted?
How would they have landed enough troops to fight in Oz?
How would they have covered the huge desert treks?
The entire Australian population would have been evacuated South of the Brisbane line.
With this plan we were almost, if not, impregnable. Our troops would have been used in guerrilla warfare, fighting for our own land. Also they would have been doing what the Australian troops were best at fighting-Guerrilla Warfare.
The Japanese weren’t stupid you know.
Having won our war, Australians could have unloaded some of its monumental chips-on-the-shoulder. Gained by being a distant satrapy (sic) of colonial Britain.
It would have meant no fighting in Uncle Sam’s wars, out of a misplaced sense of gratitude.
Also we, as mature adults, could have become a Republic.
And Australia could have stopped using sport to get back at the English and the Americans. Witness the obscene wealth thrown at the various sporting bodies for the Olympics. All to prove we are as good as they are.
Having arrived on our shores, where would they have gone from there?
James McDonald,
I suggest you at least consider some alternative reading material. Zakaria, of “Post American World” fame, is CFR and TC and in my view, nothing but a shill for the power elite. Everything he writes, in my opinion is well argued bollocks designed to befuddle the earnest information seeker and obfuscate the higher layers of truth. If not a shill then he must be a misguided dupe and I dont believe the editor of Newsweek International is that stupid, as is none of these characters.
Blowtorch,
It will take the mind controlled educated masses a while to awaken from their hypnotic state but I am heartened by recent reading of this blog. Fear not that the “numbnuts” label you “cook” or “looney”. It is merely their way of dealing with cognitive dissonaance. Si autre chose, eux-memes ils sont les agents de desinformation.
As for the “don’t hate your enemy” maxim. If you watch the Kay Griggs inteviews; her husband, a marine colonel and international assassin, would, in his drunken states, mouth off about the military, the CFR, the mob and you name it. He claimed he was an Existentialist (Phd from the Sorbonne written by someone else) and that murder to him could only be considered murder when emotion was involved. This is how mind-altered these guys are. According to Kay Griggs whose family was both military and government, all these guys (assassins) have handlers and all appear to swing both ways. So yes, I concur on the Israeli assassin literature. It looks like it comes from the same manual.
Some say Afghanistan is all about an oil pipeline, minerals, geopolitics etc etc and they may well all be right, although I personally believe that even this is a distraction.
But it might also be about genocide, the complete destruction of the Pashtuns and their sub-groupings who make up the racial face of the majority of Afghanis.
The Pashtuns boast of the most unusaul lineage to the ancient Nation of Isarel of antiquity.
If their claims have even the most remote thread of truth, then that would make them joint heirs to the current Jish state today and interfere with the global and international programme….wow!!! …no wonder these people are on the hair-line of annihilation.
A lot has been said but still no answer to my questions above from those who advocate immediate withdrawal?
I certainly aint no Sherlock Homes, but even I can connect the dots from BlowTorch to 144EBHEED.
This is just one of many very interesting links.
http://navrasaafreedi.blogspot.com/2010/01/2700-year-old-pashtun-link-to-israel.html
Jenny, Immediate withdrawl is possibl but I did cover this in one of my “metre long” missives. There are issues there in the effects on our troops but as professionals they go when told and come out when told. It would be wisest to have consultation with the Afghani Taliban which, however brutal (and there is no excuse for it) was consistent and predictable in treatment of “offenders” but it also looked after people…not come in with rubbish food as USA does. The worst Afghani meal would be better than the crap we feed them..and ourselves. Do thse people NEED saving….have we pondered that in out righteous zealotry?
One night of American or Australian TV is enough to support the concept of media censorship and I reiterate that the US involvement in both Afghanstan and Iraq has been sadism of the first order…bt to get people to kill others they find it best to give then drugs and to feed them crap about “the enemy” which has done nothing to any of them. I was listening to a rant today about “training 911 terrorists in Afghanistan” but hang on…wrere they not trained in flying in USA?…accordng to the American picture?
Anyone else want to say “What Jihadists?” Blowtorch has helped make my point for me: either you believe in the alternative “9/11 Truth” theory, or you acknowledge that a large Jihadist organisation sought to rearrange the world to please their demented, pseudo-Islamic notion of Allah, and to this end they brought down the WTC killing 3000 (in direct breach of Islamic law against suicide and the killing of non-combatants).
We could further add that these Jihadists have turned millions of Muslims into refugees and thousands into charred remains; that they brought down the WTC killing 3000 (in direct breach of Islamic laws against suicide and the killing of non-combatants); that they were harboured by the Taliban at the time; that millions of refugees had already fled Afghanistan before September 2001 (recall that the Tampa affair was in August 2001); and that the world has not seen a government in our time more atrocious towards its people than the Taliban, and we’ve seen some shockers.
To leave things as they were in October 2001 was intolerable. The question then is, what else could we do?
In answer to your question Jenny.
I suggest our leaders on both sides of the fake political divide advise the UN that as of today Australia is adopting a purely humanitarian stance in relation to all global conflicts, in line with Clause No. XXX within on eof their myriad of charters. Concurrently, US and NATO would also be advised that Australia had adopted a humanitarian approach to all global conflict in line with this clause.
I would also suggest that Australian representatives go directly to the Afghan leaders at a local level and say that Australia is discontinuing their role in this war and that since we were involved in damaging their country we now want them to tell us how we could best help to fix it. We would go to tribal leaders and councils as well as township leaders and councils. We would also go to the Govt. of Kabul, as corrupt as it might be, and find out how we can help put their country back together again. We would do this on all sides of the political fence..
Australia would then contribute aid in the form of real goods, technology and manpower to a determined value at a local level. Not cash. I would suggest that we ask the leaders of the various provinces in Afghanistan if they would like help with education and medicine i.e. doctors and teachers, books and medical supplies, running water, building schools or hospitals or replacing destroyed infrastructure (hate that word).
Help might involve building a well, a bridge, supplying an ambulance or a tractor. It might require food aid or medicines disseminated by NGO’s if they can be trusted, local officials if they can be trusted and so on. But Australia would regularly supervise the distribution of its aid to ensure it got to the end user, that being a condition of its supply.
The troops would be brought home as quickly as they could be removed without danger to them or the local population. Remember if aid is disseminated evenly between all parties to the dispute, it has a far better chance of being successful.
That way the cost of the Afghanistan campaign can be measured in dollars – not in lives and the success in terms of rejuvenation of a people who do not deserve to have their country destroyed for the sake of it.
You never know, we may just get a few other takers to this idea despite what the political elites may have promised their global masters.
Forensic..I don’t get this? certainly aint no Sherlock Homes, but even I can connect the dots from BlowTorch to 144EBHEED.
What the heck is “144EBHEED.”…?
“
Richard Wilson, I agree with everything you wrote except your first paragraph. We are already doing those things. What if we approach those leaders and they say that above all they need more combat support, what then?
Funny how no-one has mentioned the TONNES of radioactive Depleted Uranium munitions we’ve spread across the country, and wide spread death and disease it will cause to not only Afghanis, but to the asutralian soldiers as well.
Death from radiation poisoning is pretty horrible.
I recall one day bumping into a high level military attache in Canberra and quizzed him on why we have seen so little about DU in the papers - his repsonse was “The media chooses what it decides to report”…..
Uh huh…yep…right…..of course…how silly of me.
Censorship of this issue is bad - it needs ot be discussed.
Problem with DU is is it is so faine in aeorolsized form, no mask can filter it out.
we’ll start seeing bad symptoms of DU poisoning very soon..which is *one* reason why troops are coming out.
ME77, before people start thinking of DU as some kind of nuclear weapon, check the World Health Organisation position on it. Note that DU is one third as radioactive as naturally occuring uranium which we actually ingest in trace quantities.
The main concern about DU is its chemical toxicity, not its radioactivity. It has about the same toxicity as lead, the other metal dense enough and available enough for kinetic ammunition (uranium is denser and the best thing for armour piercing). Australian soldiers have a lot of occupational safety rules to protect them from lead poisoning from handling ordinary rifle ammunition.
Those are the alternatives: lead or depleted uranium. Not much difference.
TZIMTZUM: Very funny. I was listing torture, not assigning countries to specific acts. Why on earth do you imagine other people to be as silly as you are? I’ve been to both countries and I know the specific country where indigenous Mexican cacti grow.
GARY JOHNSON: Yes I was aware that Hitler declared the Afghanis to be the original Aryan race. Much to the Afghanis’ amusement, I imagine.
But what was your point about this fact?
BLOWTORCH: Precisely. Only in America could it be conceived that ‘democracy’ as being a blunt tool with which to belabour the enemy. I’m not at all sure that I live in a democracy. Therefore I’m in no hurry to thrust it onto other people.
BAKERBOY: If your security clearance is as high as you would have me believe, then your ex-bosses would be anything but sanguine about blogging the information to all and sundry. Psstt…. Folks, I’m privy to secrets that no one else is.
I’m cognisant of the fact that the US of A puts out a heap of bullshit about its capabilities. I was just hoping I could make one of their spooks wince.
I hope it wasn’t your lot that came up with the greatest threat to Oz freedom ever.
Something that no other enemy has attempted to do to us.
I speak, not only of the proposed internet filter, but of the unspeakable fact that the Federal Police will have the right, whether we want it or not, NOT
to go through each individual’s computer history to see what we have looked up, or Googled.
For example: If you write a comment to the readers of Crikey and include an address for reference, and presupposing seventy-five percent of us click onto that address, only to find you’ve inadvertently put the address of a child molesting racket, would make for a lot of people going to the slammer for a crime they didn’t do.
I know the snoopers are having a ball with Australian apathy, but they shouldn’t take us all to be ill-educated. Who knows, this may be the killer that really drives us over the edge? I hope you can get that message across to your masters.
I heard Faulkiner or was it Smith saying today that we are in (Afghanistan) for another four years. He wont be!
BLOWTORCH: Are you a frequent contributor to these pages? I’m so exhausted I’ve printed it to read as I go to sleep. Hell!?!?
Venise - what did I really say in my post? - just listing my experience. If the spooks want to interview me, that’s fine.
BTW, you need to get a life - you prattle on with outdated , anti American, leftie rubbish. Most people have moved on.
Venise
I made no such comment regarding Hitler or Aryanism in relation to the Afghanis….you must have dreamt it.
My assertion is that the Pashtuns have very credible evidence to being the remnant survivors of the once famous Kingdom of Isreal or what is known today as the Lost Tribes of Isreal.
Only Judah remains in the land of Isreal today…the rest, or the other 10 tribes, ( Ephraim & Manassah represent the single tribe of Joseph ) have vanished from the radar screen since 700-750BCE.
The irony here is staggering, that NATO & the US could be waging a war against the last remnant and link to the ancient Hebrew Nation of Isreal…the are too many independent and historic sourses that give witness to their existence and migratory patterns since their exile from the land from 700-750BCE.
It’s all there Venise, you just gotta search it out.
Cheers
Gary
SPLURKLES’ good point was buried by some epic rants almost as soon as it appeared:
I don’t mean to sound trite, but it is a dangerous job, especially airborne operations. The recent death of two Australian soldiers in one day was written up as a post-Vietnam record (within the stricture of “deaths by enemy action”), but the truth is 3RAR paratroopers die even in training drops and there were 18 SAS soldiers caught in a single training accident in 1996 who will never grow old as we who are left grow old.
This does not in any way reduce the utter ruin of losing even one soldier, both for him and those who love him. But it is important to appreciate that soldiers offer up a lot more for their jobs than ordinary people do; and in return they are owed a lot more support from the rest of us than ordinary people are owed.
One thing about Gary Johnson’s quite reasonable reply to Venise…why does anyone give a toss about the tribes of Isarel?? What does it matter if they have sunk without a trace? …we then might be able to sleep at night without thinking we hear the baby crying,
Look I get as excited about discovery and anthropology as the next bloke and am glued to the screen in those British excavation shpws or discovery in the so called “holy Land” but the ten tribes of Juda…who cares whether they are around or not and why would you?
A people that stoned others to death for such minor crimes as compliant adultery, that treated the poor with contempt, who were exemokified by the man beating his breast calling out “Lord praise be that I am not like other men”who’s history is never one of peace and quiet but intruding
and wanting to be noticed and demeaning others such as the samaritans and sumerians and others,,,who wants to resurrect them? Surely if we could simply merge as people, even keeping our own cultural memories while generally merging …..and not living as “groups” life would be better…would it not….or am I just too dense to see the wood.
Gary Johnson: “NATO & the US could be waging a war against the last remnant and link to the ancient Hebrew Nation of Isreal”
Does that mean if the Afghanis were just people — if they were found not to be the exotic anthropological relics you suggest they are — then exterminating them would be a lesser evil?
You may be worth special protection yourself, as the last remnant and link to another planet.
GARY JOHNSON: I meant no criticism of you at all, and I apologise if you misunderstood me.
My remark was in reference to some material I had come across suggesting A) Exactly what you have said about the lost tribes of Israel and B) That Adolf Hitler had come across the same information and used it to act as a Public Relations lever against his own wretched treatment of the Jews.
Could you be over-reacting to an almost throw-away line of mine?
“Yes I was aware that Hitler declared the Afghanis to be the original Aryan race. Much to the Afghanis’ amusement, I imagine.”
This comment merited an outraged comment from you? Astonishing.
BlowTorch: Who are you talking about stoned people to death? Are you talking about all those staged public floggings ansd false beheadings that profile the Pashtuns as heartless killers and wife bashers? if you believe that shit then I got a bridge for sale.
((((Does that mean if the Afghanis were just people — if they were found not to be the exotic anthropological relics you suggest they are — then exterminating them would be the lesser evil))))
This the exact same reasoning that George Bush used as justification for invading Iraq after it was confirmed there no WMD’s…he fell back on the spurious moral high-ground that the whole world, courteous of the MSM bought lock stock and barrel…and now you use the same reasoning for the Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
Congratulations!!!…you and Dubya are of one mind and obviously from the same planet.
Gary, if my point seemed as bizarre to you as yours did to me, I’ll rephrase.
My point was that all people are equally worthy of the golden rule “Live and let live” if they don’t breach it first.
You referred to “waging a war against” a people, as if we were not waging a war against a gang, and a Jihadist movement, which were already waging war against those people before we got there.
And not just “waging a war against” any people, but a people of some special provenance, implying that this makes “waging a war against” them all the more heinous.
But if their provenance or rarity made it more heinous, then war against some other people would have to be less heinous. Like, say, common garden variety Anglo Saxons, or Slavs, or Han Chinese.
It doesn’t. War against anyone, any gang or any movement, must not be taken lightly. Ethnic rarity or whatever, makes no difference.
BLOWTORCH:
(((why does anyone give a toss about the tribes of Isarel?? What does it matter if they have sunk without a trace? …we then might be able to sleep at night without thinking we hear the baby crying, ))))))
At the simple level..do you not have compassion for the American Indians and their treatment at the hands of the US govt?….what about the Australian Aboriginees? would it be wrong to support a more fairer and equitable solution to their plight? What about all those little minority Aboriginal groups that face extinction at the hands of industrial logging in the forests of Kalimantan and other parts of Indonesia? ..I could go on all night. So the question should really be why are you singling out tribes of Isreal/Pashtuns for any less compassion than any other group?…
At the deeper level and away from the anthropomorphic language of the texts it presents itself as a Cosmic type restoration and realignment….but I don’t think you really wanna go there just yet so there is no point in elaborating.
…the baby crying analogy was a ripper.
BLOWTORCH: Hopefully the moderator will allow both of my comments to be printed.
I have reprinted my one line remark to GARY JOHNSON. ““Yes I was aware that Hitler declared the Afghanis to be the original Aryan race. Much to the Afghanis’ amusement, I imagine.” To which I received a thoroughly patronising opening stanza from GARY JOHNSON.
“I made no such comment regarding Hitler or Aryanism in relation to the Afghanis….you must have dreamt it.”
I fail to perceive why GARY JOHNSON thought the comment was any more than an my acknowledgement of an earlier comment made by him, and addressed to me.
That you have sailed in to make yet another comment on what was to me, just an acknowledgement that GARY JOHNSON had answered me, I find completely extraordinary.
Are we due to have a new moon this weekend? Or is it that the Crikey commentariat has a collective chip on its shoulder? Or have I been set up by a third party?
Please see my interpretation of my comment to you. And I wrote it, so I imagine I may have understood it.
Until the past few days I haven’t really been aware of GARY JOHNSON; before today I had never heard of you, and apart from saying to you that your comment was so lengthy I was exhausted, that I would print it so I could read it tonight when I am in bed, relaxed and in a suitable mind-set to receive the information provided by you at such length. And as it would have been the last thing I would have read before going to sleep.
“BLOWTORCH: Are you a frequent contributor to these pages? I’m so exhausted I’ve printed it to read as I go to sleep. Hell!?!?” was my actual comment.
Fortunately you have now spared me the trouble of reading it at all.
The only person with a legitimate cause to attack me shall remain unnamed, the only reference to him that I will make is that Spooks don’t usually bare their chests and tell the world how wonderful they are.
Well, at least there are three people whose names I can ignore in future. Thank you, gentlemen, thank you.
GARY JOHNSON: As my reply to you was an apology followed by me saying…
My remark was in reference to some material I had come across suggesting A) Exactly what you have said about the lost tribes of Israel and B) That Adolf Hitler had come across the same information and had used it to act as a lever against his own wretched treatment of the same Lost Tribes of Israel.
I actually used a four letter word starting with ‘J’, just in case it is no longer possible to use this word, politically speaking, of course.
So thank you for your sane comments in reply to two lines of my own.
It will be a pleasure not to have to listen/read/answer you ever again.
@James McDonald
ok James I get it..duhh.LoL….you are right. Being any other minority group would not make it any less evil. Guess I got a bit carried away with the paradox and irony of NATO and the US attacking the Pashtuns given who they may be.
Venise…is there something wrong?
GARY JOHNSON: Yes, but as Crikey have moderated it out of existence, and I lack the energy to do it all over again.
Don’t worry, it was nothing major.
Cheers
Venise
Actually, I’ve just discovered they did print it. Seek and ye shall find.
GARY: Have you come across BLOWTORCH before? He’s a nut case. …¡…