How many more must die in Afghanistan?

[IndianaGreen]

LBN thread:

Source: CBS NEWS

August 17, 2009 2:16 PM
Obama: Afghanistan War Is "Fundamental"

The war in Afghanistan is "fundamental to the defense of our people," President Obama said Monday, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Phoenix, Ariz. -- but the fight will not be easy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4019098&mesg_id=4019098

Although the following was addressed to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, it equally applies to President Obama:

'How many more must die, Prime Minister?'

Monday 17 August 2009by Daniel Coysh

Peace campaigners have held moving vigils in London and Cardiff as the British death toll in Afghanistan rose to 204.

The Naming of the Dead ceremony at the Cenotaph in London was organised by the Stop the War Coalition.

Activists, including relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, laid a wreath at the monument, before taking turns to read out the names of every one of the 204 British service personnel.

A Stop the War spokesman said: "We do not accept Gordon Brown's view that these soldiers lives were 'sacrificed' for a worthy cause.

"All the past reasons given for this war have fallen away. The idea that the invading armies are bringing democracy, stability or the liberation of women are exposed as the empty promises they always were."

Clare Glenton, whose husband Lance Corporal Joe Glenton faces court martial for speaking out against the war, asked Mr Brown: "How many more, Prime Minister?

"I urge the British government to put an end to all the pain and suffering of the brave men, women and their families so that none of us will be asking this question 40 years from now."

She pointed out that "there are no firm figures on the number of Afghan lives lost, but in an unjustified conflict even one life lost is too many."

In Cardiff, campaigners from Stop the War Coalition and CND Cymru gathered in the city centre yesterday evening for a vigil for peace and justice, calling for "an intelligent, measured and negotiated solution" to the conflict.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/britain/How-many-more-must-die-Prime-Minister

On edit:

I am sure we still got DUers that remember way back in 2002 and the psychopath warlord named Rashid Dostum. He is now on our side, or rather, he is on the side of our man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai. Vietnam had its Diem. Afghanistan has its Karzai. This won't end well, unless one is in the opium trade!

Now brutal warlord holds key to Afghan poll

Election overshadowed by Taliban threats and intervention of notorious mujahedin

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Kim Sengupta in Nad-e-Ali, Helmand

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

As campaigning ended yesterday for elections that could determine both the future of Afghanistan and the role of British troops there, the outcome threatened to hang on the impact of renewed Taliban intimidation and the return to the fray of a former warlord, notorious for savage acts of brutality and violence.

The Taliban warned that anyone whose fingers were stained with indelible ink, the tell-tale sign of having voted, risked having their digits chopped off. Hundreds of letters have also been sent out in the old Taliban capital Kandahar, warning people to stay away from the polling stations or face a wave of suicide attacks and "new" unspecified tactics.

But on the side of President Hamid Karzai, the pro-Western incumbent, there are equally worrying signs. The return of General Rashid Dostum, a politically treacherous ex-warlord, has heightened fears of yet another vicious cycle of bloodshed and lawlessness. Forced to flee Afghanistan last year after claims that he brutalised a political rival, General Dostum is – to the horror of Western diplomats – now emerging as a key player who could be instrumental in delivering an election victory for the President.

Best known for allegedly overseeing a massacre of 2,000 Taliban prisoners following the US-led invasion in 2001, General Dostum controlled large swaths of northern Afghanistan for years. He remains the de facto leader of the country's ethnic Uzbeks and his return is likely to consolidate their vote behind Mr Karzai. But the warlord's triumphant return from Turkey on Sunday has exposed Mr Karzai to renewed accusations that even if he wins the election he will remain in hock to thugs and human rights abusers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/now-brutal-warlord-holds-key-to-afghan-poll-1773467.html

[jenmito]

1. Sestak (D-PA) agrees with Obama. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

4. A lot of people voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Not one of them ended up with their names on the Vietnam Memorial.

[jenmito]

5. Obama campaigned calling Afghanistan the "good" war meaning we should be there instead of

Iraq since those who attacked us planned it from Afghanistan.

[IndianaGreen]

6. 9-11 was planned in Hamburg, Germany

And there is nothing "good" about war, particularly this one.

[Oregone]

2. 43,729

[IndianaGreen]

8. Minister of Defence in the UK estimates at least 10-years in Afghanistan

and that's the optimistic assessment. Do we want to stay 10-years in Afghanistan?

[create.peace]

3. here we go again, but the price of gas is higher

on the up side more people have free time to protest:sarcasm:

[IndianaGreen]

7. Remember the psychopath warlord Rashid Dostum? He's baaaaack!

Now brutal warlord holds key to Afghan poll

As campaigning ended yesterday for elections that could determine both the future of Afghanistan and the role of British troops there, the outcome threatened to hang on the impact of renewed Taliban intimidation and the return to the fray of a former warlord, notorious for savage acts of brutality and violence.

The Taliban warned that anyone whose fingers were stained with indelible ink, the tell-tale sign of having voted, risked having their digits chopped off. Hundreds of letters have also been sent out in the old Taliban capital Kandahar, warning people to stay away from the polling stations or face a wave of suicide attacks and "new" unspecified tactics.

But on the side of President Hamid Karzai, the pro-Western incumbent, there are equally worrying signs. The return of General Rashid Dostum, a politically treacherous ex-warlord, has heightened fears of yet another vicious cycle of bloodshed and lawlessness. Forced to flee Afghanistan last year after claims that he brutalised a political rival, General Dostum is – to the horror of Western diplomats – now emerging as a key player who could be instrumental in delivering an election victory for the President.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/now-brutal-warlord-holds-key-to-afghan-poll-1773467.html

In Vietnam it was Diem. In Afghanistan is Karzai.

[create.peace]

9. dark days.....luckily we have healthcare to occupy the media,

so that most people are unaware of this.

thanks for your posts, btw

[IndianaGreen]

10. Or Michael Jackson as we did during the Honduran coup

or non-coup, according to some here.

[create.peace]

12. as roseanne rosannadana says, 'it's always something'

it's how magic works (illusions, michael, illusions)- divert our attention.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Robert Fisk: Why these deaths hit home as hard as the Somme

Our Indiana Guard is in Afghanistan. These are our friends and neighbors. They and their families are the ones that are bearing the brunt of a misguided and doomed to failure strategy while the rest of us go on with our lives back home. Our troops deserve an honest debate back home on the policies that have put them in harm's way. Such a debate is already taking place in the UK, as the Fisk piece shows. We need that debate in the USA now!

Robert Fisk: Why these deaths hit home as hard as the Somme

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

More than 200 soldiers dead in Afghanistan, and now Gordon Brown advises us that "the best way to honour their memory is to see the course through". I don't know which particular "course" Gordon has in mind – protecting democracy, training the Afghan army, defeating the Taliban, talking to the Taliban, or just fighting them so they don't turn up on British shores – but this is straight out of the George W Bush tear bucket.

Not so long ago, I seem to remember, Bush was telling us that we would be betraying the American dead in Iraq if we gave up the fight. We owed it to the dead to go on killing more Iraqis. And now we owe it to the dead to go on killing more Afghans. Who, of course, will go on killing us. Is there no end to this madness?

If we are now going to send our soldiers to be killed because the soldiers we sent before have been killed, then we should get out of Afghanistan today. As a matter of fact, I believe that's what we should do. None of our military – or any other Western soldiers – have any business occupying a square metre of the Muslim world. But there you have it.

We've lost more than 200 soldiers but to honour them, we've got to lose some more. The Brits – wise folk, though sometimes a bit slow on the uptake – worked all this out a long time ago. Hence the lines of mourners at Wootton Bassett (no government ministers, of course) every time a flag-draped coffin comes home.

Yet I do wonder whether our concern about this war doesn't just come from the weirdness of the military campaign, but from the funerals themselves.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-these-deaths-hit-home-as-hard-as-the-somme-1773468.html