When you treat Afghanistan like New Orleans

[formercia]

Bad things happen:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2406778,00.html

The Times October 17, 2006

Drivers who run gauntlet of Taleban on highway through hell

From Anthony Loyd in Kabul

The cost of driving to Kandahar is £645. But the price could be your life





THE bloodstains have been washed from the dashboard and steering wheel, and coloured stars stuck across the bullet holes in the windscreen. But Ghulam Sakhi still feels spooked driving a murdered man's truck.

“It's a strange feeling sitting here when only 15 days ago a man I knew was killed in the cab,” said the Afghan driver as he waited in a queue of vehicles outside Bagram airbase, ready to load up with supplies and drive them to American troops in eastern Afghanistan. “And the job itself frightens me now. But the money is good and I haven't got much choice - I've got a family to feed.”

[izzie]

1. So we waste the people of that country to feed ours.

It is like the bases we build. As if the people in these countries do not see that as evil as they try to find a way to live. You would think we would have seen what this does with the English in India, or Europe countries in China. We have a history of doing such things. Do we ever learn?

[leftchick]

2. but wait! The chimp said the Taliban "are no more"!!!

he lied?

<snip>

Nato may have destroyed significant concentrations of Taleban fighters in Kandahar and Helmand during the summer. But it is now discovering, just as the Soviet forces did, that the insurgents seem able to move at will across huge swaths of territory, ambushing convoys and killing anyone connected with the Kabul Government or foreign troops.

“There seem to be factory-loads of Taleban out there now,” said Bariolai, another Afghan trucker, all spit and oil stains, waiting in the Bagram vehicle line. “You should see some of the southern areas we go to — burnt-out vehicles all along the roads, locals who would eat you if you didn’t have armed protection. Only three days ago, I saw four bodies by the verge, three of them beheaded. One was a guy I knew, an engineer constructing American camps. The other three were his bodyguards. The Talebs had just got them.”

[formercia]

5. "Lies work."

GHW Bush 1992

[madokie]

3. we are so screwed in more ways than one

we have been shielded from most of the shit for all our lives, in fact some things I am just now finding out. But the people of the world haven't had a press that shields them from the truth so they see us for what we are. All for me and a the hell with you type attitude whether we want to admit it or not and I suspect it to be true. we are naked

[formercia]

4. and now comes payback.

My Father used to beat me severely on a regular basis. One day when I was 15, he broke a broomstick over my back and I turned and laughed at him. He never touched me again.