I don't why we should stay in Afghanistan if we've lost the moral high ground

[MrScorpio]

Without that high ground we've immersed ourselves in a quagmire

Sticking up for a corrupt Karzai government, nation building for a people who have as much in common with us as we have with the Klingon Empire, constant incursions across the Pakistani border?

A democracy knows not these things.

I'm not comfortable with doubling down on a bad idea. Afghanistan is known as the "Graveyard of Empires".

No good can come of staying put.


Bring our boys home.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Agreed.

[shadowknows69]

2. +1000

[Johonny]

3. most people agree the time to make this work was 8 years ago

it's not clear you can reverse 8 years of bad choices and turn this into a good thing.

[avaistheone1]

4. Why? Because war is a racket and there are Billions of dollars to be made.

Here are some morals for you.

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/AFGHANMINERALs/docs/gold_a4.pdf

http://www.shvoong.com/humanities/419393-afghanistan-natural-resources-10/

http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/afghanistan-a-war-for-gas-and-oil-pipelines-2/

[crispini]

5. What does it mean to have "lost the moral high ground"?

Some people would say that sticking up for the women and children of Afghanistan (i.e. "nation building") would be the moral high ground. When the Taliban ruled that country, girls had acid thrown in their face because they went to school. The idea of turning over a country to those thugs and bandits is reprehensible.

[AntiFascist]

6. Who originally armed those thugs and bandits?

It was us, when we were fighting the Soviet Union. We need to deal with the corruption in our own MIC before we can even think of nation building, otherwise everything we touch becomes corrupt.

[crispini]

8. What is MIC?

I know the history, yes, it was us. The fact is, though, if we had stuck around and done any nation building after the war against the Russians had been won, we might not have been in this mess today. Remember "Charlie Wilson's War"? Plenty of money for rocket launchers, but not one thin dime for roads or schools after it was all over.

[AntiFascist]

15. Exactly, "Charlie Wilson's War" should be required viewing...

MIC refers to the military-industrial-complex. I agree, if Wilson were successful in raising funding for schools, etc, after the war ended, then Afghanistan may have been better off. The sad fact is there are elements of the MIC which want to stir up and promote terrorism, all for the purpose of the US coming in later and bringing about massive regime change. Neocons have a term for this, its called "creative destruction".

[crispini]

16. Yes, war is indeed a racket.

But what has happened in the last 12 months to bring about this u-turn in Obama's Afghanistan policy? The fact is that when he was elected he was quite clear that Afghanistan was a part of the war on terror and that nation-building would be the way to fight it. I agree with this -- help people people schools and roads and markets. Now all of a sudden there is this concept that we can just fight the Taliban and not help the Afghan people. Where is this coming from? I don't like it.

[AntiFascist]

18. Speak of the devil...

Rachel Maddow just played the corresponding clip from the movie, and now reports that Charlie Wilson himself says that we should pull out of Afghanistan. Sounds like he even thinks its too late for nation-building.

[crispini]

19. Eesh.

The poor women. :(

[EFerrari]

24. Go watch this interview with a lady from RAWA today:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/7/voices_from_afghanistan_afghan_womens_activist

:hi:

[tekisui]

7. It is not ours to turn over.

Do you think it is up to us to invade every country with oppressive standards for women?

[crispini]

10. Obviously not.

But, whatever happened to "you broke it, you fix it?"

[tekisui]

11. I like "if you are breaking it, stop breaking it." It was also broke

long before we dove in.

[crispini]

13. That is quite true. However, we did go there for a good reason.

Unlike Iraq, which we had no reason to invade, it is quite true that the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan are hideouts for terrorists and in fact still are.

[pscot]

9. If you think anything we do in Afghanistan

is going to alter the way they treat their women and kids, you're kidding yourself. How they live is their own damn business. You want to save somebody, there are plenty of homeless kids and battered women right where you live. You can't help people at gunpoint. They don't like it.

[crispini]

12. Nationbuilding efforts only really started when Obama took office.

No, you can't help people at gunpoint, but you can do things like build roads and schools and markets and help get a basic economy going. That country has never even been a country in the true economic sense.

[Prometheus Bound]

14. Do you have any evidence for saying that?

This is the first I've heard of acid attacks on women during Taliban rule. The incidents I've read started long after the Taliban were driven from power.

[crispini]

17. Maybe I have conflated more than one incident.

I was reading about acid attacks on women and I am not sure about the actual occurrence. I may have assumed something (you know what "assuming" things does, haha.)

[scarletwoman]

20. They douse women with kerosene and set them on fire in India.

Should we invade India, too?

[EFerrari]

23. RAWA is for a pullout as per an interview on DemocracyNow! today. n/t

[Toasterlad]

21. "Lost"?

I'm not sure we ever had it.

[EFerrari]

22. Amy's whole show today was on Afghanistan.

Four different different angles. Hotlinks, video, audio on front page:

http://www.democracynow.org/


As Afghan War Enters 9th Year, Rep. Barbara Lee -- Lone Lawmaker to Vote Against 2001 Authorization -- Seeks to Block New Troop Surge

On the eighth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, we speak to Democratic Congressmember Barbara Lee, the only lawmaker in either chamber of Congress to vote against the 2001 resolution authorizing the initial use of force. Lee recently introduced legislation to prohibit funding to send more troops to Afghanistan.



Voices from Afghanistan: Afghan Women's Activist Zoya Speaks Out on Eight Years of Occupation

Zoya is a member of the radical underground organization RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. She fled Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion but later returned to her country to document life under Taliban rule. She has been an outspoken critic of the US and NATO invasion of Afghanistan.


"Return of the Warlords": Afghan Elections Marred by Fraud, Warlord Dominance

Eight years after US and NATO forces toppled the Taliban, Afghanistan held its second major elections since 2001. But far from being a symbol of democracy, the August 20th elections have been marred by accusations of fraud and concerns over President Hamid Karzai’s reliance on the support of warlords and suspected war criminals. We get a report from independent journalist Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films.


Arrest of 61 Peace Activists Outside White House Kicks Off Week of Protest Against Afghan War

As the occupation of Afghanistan enters its ninth year, the antiwar movement here in the United States has organized several actions this week calling for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Dozens of rallies and protests are being held across the country today. We speak to David Swanson, who was among sixty-one people arrested Monday at a protest outside the White House.

[EFerrari]

25. The whole idea that al Qaida can be stopped by invading Afghanistan

is ridiculous. It's like that scene in "High Anxiety" where they're going to prevent delivery newspapers of in San Franciso by getting a big truck and a lot of quarters. :crazy: