And WHY are we still there? --- Karzai: "If I had to choose sides today, I'd choose the Taliban"

[kpete]

As Karzai spoke, he grew agitated, then enraged. He told them that he now has three "main enemies" - the Taliban, the United States and the international community.

"If I had to choose sides today, I'd choose the Taliban," he fumed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121203747.html
http://www.americablog.com/2010/12/if-i-had-to-choose-sides-today-id.html

[MilesColtrane]

1. The Taliban isn't going to keep you in Armani, chum.

This is called playing to your base.

[Gin]

2. hey President Obama....he wants us out...since you are in a giving

mood...lets get our troops out of there and give Karzai his wish.

[Chan790]

3. Fuck him.

I've long been one of the staunchest advocates of us staying the course in Afghanistan, but I know when/where we're not wanted.

If we left tomorrow, Hamid Karzai would not survive the week...and apparently that's what he really wants. That was our second mistake, propping up that penny-ante despotic drug-lord. The first was fucking around about how we went about trying to capture bin Laden in the first place.

Next time we find ourselves in one of these situations where we need to enter another country, we'd better be going in with broad multinational support, running it like a police-action, getting the people we're going in for and getting the hell out. Six weeks max.

[abelenkpe]

4. Cool.

Can we leave now?

[gratuitous]

6. NO!

That's just what the terrorists would want. And then they'd be attacking us here, since they couldn't attack us there. And do you have any idea how hard it is to string a gullible 19-year-old along so that he can be induced into carrying out an "attack" with dummy bombs? You think people get all scared and stuff by accident? It's hard work.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. What must be going through the heads of the soldiers.....

on the ground there.
And if you haven't seen Restrepo you should. It's a watch now on Netflix

[kenny blankenship]

7. Afghanistan War: Public opinion turns sharply against US forces

Analysis: New poll says US has all but lost battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan. By Jean MacKenzie - GlobalPost 12/9/2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — First the good news: U.S. forces are still more popular in Afghanistan than Osama bin Laden. Fully 6 percent of respondents in a new poll expressed a “very favorable” opinion of American troops, versus just 2 percent for the fugitive Al Qaeda leader.

To be fair, the United States scored much higher in the more grudging “somewhat favorable” category, outstripping the world’s most wanted man by 36 percent to just 4. But more than half of all Afghans — 55 percent — want U.S. forces out of their country, and the sooner the better.

Add it all up, and it is pretty bad news for the U.S. military as it examines its options ahead of next week’s Afghanistan strategy review.

“They just do not want us here,” said one foreign diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The Western troops, when they came here said ‘the Soviets were invaders, we are liberators. But for Afghans it is all the same — we are all ‘foreigners.’ They will fight anyone who comes here.”

73% think it's time to negotiate with the Taliban. 82% tell pollsters they think favorably of Karzai, the same President that talks about joining the Taliban and whom western diplomats and generals groan about as useless and corrupt. Even though 85% say Afghan police corruption is a moderate problem or big problem where they live, they overwhelmingly trust their own forces to protect them versus America's coalition forces: 77% say they trust their own country's forces vs. 36% trusting us. 73% want our airstrikes halted regardless of the effect it would have on the outcome of the war, and 55% want us to withdraw from their country without any qualification or delay.

BTW: if you didn't already see it yet in theaters, the Afghan War documentary film Restrepo is now available through Netflix on-demand streaming service. The futility and fury of the war is all there to see, and everyone who "supports our troops!" should take a good, long look.

[Poboy]

8. We are there to protect, ship and profit from the OPIUM!

The U.S. protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, maintaining the addiction of Wall Street and the CIA to billions of dollars in profit.

more than 95 percent of the revenue generated by opium production is siphoned off to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions.

In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital, said Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said last January. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking systems main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.

Former Managing Director and board member of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read, Catherine Austin Fitts, has long alleged that the banksters launder imponderable amounts of drug money. According to the Department of Justice, the US launders between $500 billion $1 trillion annually. I have little idea what percentage of that is narco dollars, but it is probably safe to assume that at least $100-200 billion relates to US drug import-exports and retail trade, writes Fitts.

The CIA has long secured the lucrative global drug market for Wall Street and for its own operational off-the-books purposes. The CIAs operational directorate, in other words thats their covert operations, para-military, dirty tricks — call it whatever you want — has for at least 40 years that we can document paid for a significant amount of its work through the sales of heroin and cocaine, Guerrilla News Network reported in an interview with Christopher Simpson.

The CIA has been in the drug running business since the 1950s. In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Latin America, and Afghanistan, the CIA — also known as the Cocaine Import Agency — has remained at the forefront of the international illicit drug trade. The journalist Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News tied the CIA and the Contras to a large crack cocaine ring in Los Angeles. Webb paid with his life for revealing this information to the public.


VIDEO- The U.S. protecting opium fields in Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56XpRyNkf6w

[Poboy]

9. btw, recommend

[rainbow4321]

10. US cable: calling Karzai "weak, paranoid, unable to nation build"

Heh, were his comments before or after he read any of the cables about him....



http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09KABUL1767.html

In these meetings and other recent encounters
with Karzai, two contrasting portraits emerge. The first is
of a paranoid and weak individual unfamiliar with the basics
of nation building and overly self-conscious that his time in
the spotlight of glowing reviews from the international
community has passed. The other is that of an ever-shrewd
politician who sees himself as a nationalist hero who can
save the country from being divided by the
decentralization-focused agenda of Abdullah, other political
rivals, neighboring countries, and the US. In order to
recalibrate our relationship with Karzai, we must deal with
and challenge both of these personalities.

¶12. (S/NF) The danger of long-term damage to our
relationship with and thus our influence over Karzai ) who
for now is the clear favorite to win the election ) is real,
but not irreversible. We need to carefully ensure that the
distance between us and Karzai does not grow over the
remaining weeks before the election. Karzai has invited me
for a series of one-on-one meetings in the near future.
According to Atmar, Karzai recognizes the importance of a
closer dialogue.



I will work now to lay the foundation for
improved trust and advances on the two key themes outlined
above. I will work in tandem with Gen. McChrystal on both of
these fronts. On the discussion of shared responsibilities,
I will begin a frank, collaborative (and perhaps, at times,
confrontational) dialogue with Karzai. No alternative
approach is now evident. Karzai's current vision for
Afghanistan's future relies too strongly on warlords, tribal
chiefs, and other personalities of the past who would be
difficult to reconcile with our commitments to build strong
government institutions and professional security forces