In my hometown of Montpelier Vt., yesterday there was a public discussion about Afghanistan at the town library with a room full of people of all ages. Many intelligent and compassionate questions were brought up by people who are very troubled by their fear of terrorism in the US, and current and impending US government activities in Afghanistan. It almost felt like a dread everyone was feeling, that a dark shadow was coming.
One comment that struck me hardest was that the USA hopes militarily to modify the behavior, or control a population, of over 66 million people ( 200 million if you include Pakistan), of different tribes who speak multiple languages, which no US soldiers can speak, in a country half the size of of the continental USA.
It is laughable and totally arrogant idea.

I heard today 50 local senior cadets at Norwich this week were pulled into the Army for Afghanistan duty. One mother said they aren't trained enough and was very worried.

Your anti-war stance bothers me and quite honestly it offends me. Don't you realize that Israel is surrounded on all its sides by rogue states intent on destroying it? If our troops leave the region who will be left to protect Israels interests? We should stay to provide a modicum of stability for the region. We should care about Israel precisely because Israel is America's greatest ally. Lately, I have noticed that there has been a rise in your type of sentiment which is quite worrisome. I dare to venture that your comment borders on antisemitism , albeit unintentionally.

Perhaps the "victory" that generals and the architects of war are really talking about is not a victory in the traditional way, but simply to keep the war going forever; a kind of 1984 scenario. Just look at it! For a long time we were Iraqs' pal and giving Saadam tons of money and then a few decades down the road we are bombing Iraq down to cave-man status! What was the objective?? Our leaders drove us crazy about Vietnam that it was the enemy, blah--blah-blah; it was a communist country. And now, we do business with the biggest communist nation in the world, (China) and we owe them our shirts!
So what was all of the noise about?? The way I see it, it was to keep greasing the military industrial complex with the blood of human beings!
Peace!

EUROPEANS NATIONS GET ALL THESE SOCIAL PROGRAMS FROM THEIR TAXES...

AND WHAT DO WE GET ?

WE GET THESE STUPID WARS !!!!!!!!!!

THESE WARS ARNT MAKING ME ONE DIME!!!!!!!!!

ITS MAKING CHENEY AND HIS BUDDIES RICH !!!!!!!!!

BUT IT AINT MAKING ME ONE DIME WEALTHIER !!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM AGAINST THIS WAR BECAUSE I AINT GETTING NOTHING OUT OF IT !!!!!!!!!

IF CHENEY GAVE ME SOME MONEY , THEN !!!!!!! I WOULD SUPPORT IT !!!!!!!!!!

I DONT ENGAGE IN ANY UNPROFITABLE VENTURES !!!!!!!!!

HAVE A NICE DAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the many things that turned so many against the Vietnam War, which popular opposition ultimately compelled the US government into pulling out, was the fact that the mainstream media at the time engaged in comprehensive coverage of the reality of that war. Much of the reality of the Vietnam War played out live, in action, on the black and white tv my family had in our living room; photojournalists' work of the reality of that war was plastered on the covers of such news magazines as Time (e.g. http://www.peace.ca/kimstory.htm); and journalists reported directly from combat zones. My question is, how can we, the public, compel the mainstream media to do the fine job it did during the Vietnam War respecting filming, photographing and reporting on the realities of that war, in the case of the Afghanistan War? And, if the mainstream media continues to fail and refuse to do its job of reporting on the realities of the Afghanistan War, can members of Congress and their staffs go into the war zone and film, photograph and report back reality on the ground?

OUR HOLY GOVT WILL PROTECT US FROM THE TERRORISTS, ALL WE NEED TO DO IS ALLOW OUR HOLY GOVT TO BOMB ANYONE ANYWHERE THEY DEEM NECESSARY, AND ALSO WE NEED TO GIVE UP OUR CIVIL RIGHTS IN ORDER TO BE MORE SECURE
bomb the brown people, bomb them until they have freedom
MUSLIM = EVIL
JEWS & CHRISTIANS = HOLY
war is peace
occupation is liberation
take my freedoms away , just stop those scary freaking -BOOGEY MAN- muslims from making anymore terror events

DIDN'T WE READ THIS BOOK IN HIGH SCHOOL?

Unfortunately, it seems that the health care debate is consuming affairs that hold significant importance,if not more than health care. There is no logical explanation as to what we are doing in Afghanistan. Admiral, Mike Mullen stated rather awkwardly that they need more troops, but they're not sure how many because the strategy is not clearly defined. We saw what happened when Wilson armed the Afghans. Al Qaeda was spawned from the mess that was left when we left Afghanistan. Wilson and others believed they were doing what was right for the Afghan people. We made our mark, played hero and then left them in a chaotic state. We can't use Bin Laden as an excuse for our presence there any longer.

My how short are the memories of those who now work on Capital hill. Wake up, it wasn't very long ago that you were marching in the streets to stop a war in Indo China, yet here you are making the very same mistakes as the ones you were so passionate about in your youth. The war in Afganistan is a no win situation that the US. no longer belongs in. How it is we forgot the mission at hand, to capture and or kill Bin Laden. Yet eight years and many billions later that has not happened and it seems it's not going to, so there for the mission is over and it's time to bring our brave and heroic men and women in uniform home to their families. You who were voted to the job now must do it for the sake of our millitary and this country as a whole, the time Ladies and Gentlemen is NOW!!!!!!

For God's sake, get our troops out of there! Without a clear stated goal, without a real, valid REASON, there's no excuse for this waste of human life and dollars. unconscionable, pathetic and infuriating.

I rest my case.

Ann Jones, humanitarian aid worker and author of "Kabul in Winter" recently wrote from Kabul, Afghanistan:

"I've come back to the Afghan capital again, after an absence of two years, to find it ruined in a new way. Not by bombs this time, but by security.The heart of the city is now hidden behind piles of Hescos giant, grey sandbags produced somewhere in Great Britain. They're stacked against the walls of government buildings, U.N. agencies, embassies, NGO offices, and army camps (of which there are a lot) -- and they only seem to grow and multiply.

"What's called security generates fear.

"You can't understand the Taliban without knowing about America's covert operations in the region in the 1980s. Back then, President Ronald Reagan's administration, mainly through the CIA, used the Pakistani Intelligence services to fund, arm, and train Afghan and foreign Islamist jihadis to defeat the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Pakistan subsequently used "channels built with U.S. money" to install in Afghanistan a friendly government -- the Taliban.

"Later, after the George W. Bush administration invaded the country and the U.S. ousted the Taliban, it installed Hamid Karzai as president and returned many of the old Islamist jihadis to power in his government. Thus, this peculiar, well-established fact underlies the current war in Afghanistan: the United States sponsored both sides.

"Only the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called, year after year, for a moral accounting. Its surveys of Afghan citizens consistently find that the people want lasting peace, and to attain it, they would prefer some sort of truth and reconciliation procedure, like the one that took place in South Africa, to cleanse the country and set it on an honest intellectual and moral footing.

"As I write, 4,000 newly arrived U.S. Marines are trudging through the blistering heat of Helmand Province to push back the Taliban so local Pashtuns can turn out to vote next month for Karzai, their fellow Pashtun.

"What's wrong with this new Obama strategy? For one thing, in some areas the local Pashtun population has instead turned out to fight against the foreign invaders, side by side with the Taliban (who, it should be remembered, are mostly local Pashtuns). They're as fed up as anybody with the puppet Karzai. Like millions of other Afghans, they say Karzai has done nothing for the people. But saddled with history, Karzai remains the horse the U.S. rode in on."



The Hescos of Afganastan and the twelve foot high concrete walls in Baghdad that divide the Sunni and Shia populations are dwarfed by the 30ft high concrete ones in the 'Holy' Land; which is in pieces, Bantustans.

All the builders of these barriers and walls claim that they are democracies and that the walls are all about Security.

All builders of these barriers and walls exhibit the schizophrenic discipline of thinking two contradictory truths at the same time. Coined by George Orwell in "1984" as 'doublethink' the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Truth fabricates lies and the Ministry of Love tortures and kills any it deems threatening. Most threatening of all for Big Brother are those with independent thought.


In 2007, Naomi Klein, in her book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" argued that at the height of the 2003-07 economic boom, the military industrial complex was driving Israel's tremendous economic growth, and Israel had the largest GDP growth of any Western country.

Klein theorized that the source of Israel's tremendous economic growth in the past five years cannot be attributed simply to its encouragement of high tech entrepreneurship and basic science. Its success must be understood, rather, as a product of its ability to use the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as a laboratory for defense industry innovation -- and to showcase their wares.

"Young Israeli computer scientists and engineers gain their training in the military, and then go on to start the kind of technology companies that have proliferated wildly in Israel and whose products are much sought after abroad. The entire Israeli hi-tech sector and not just military technology per se, is thus an outgrowth of Israel's hyper militarization. The Israeli economy's tech sector grew by 20% in 2006 alone, and Israel is now the foreign country with the second most US stock exchange-listed companies. Klein's point that Israel's military-derived technologies are an economic growth-driver because they can be tested in situ is correct, but it is insufficient for describing the magnitude of the military's tremendous penetration of the country's economy. Palestinians under occupation can indeed be seen as human "guinea pigs" and not just merely military targets, as Klein claims, but the society's militarization is far more profound than even she suggests."

"After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, but then came 9/11, and "suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many of the country's most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom--a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war…Israel now sends $1.2 billion in "defense" products to the United States—up dramatically from $270 million in 1999…That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world…Much of this growth has been in the so-called "homeland security" sector.

"Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are …precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror.

"Israel's policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the occupied territories are also "laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested Palestinians--whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling "Hamasistan"--are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs."

Excerpted: "To all the Sharp Dressed Soldiers Shipping Out"
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I agree that we need a national debate on this as well as many other issues. However, any meaningful, rational debate would have to involve informed, educated parties. Either that or it will just degenerate into a morass, pushed by polarized parites on either side, just like the current health care debacle. I see no hope for this as long as the Main Stream Media is involved.
A basic awareness of geopolitical issues is a first step. At the least, go to the library and read the Economist. There should be a test on our current involvment in Afghanistan (and the whole chaotic region) before anyone is allowed to join the "debate". Most peolpe are absolutley clueless and would not contribute anything more than their emotions.

What we need is a national debate on Afghanistan and Pakistan together. The United States created this mess back when we supplied the arms through the Pakistan ISI to defeat the Soviet forces. Then we walked away and the results are clear. Therefore, do we walk again or do we establish a workable solution? I agree we need to debate but it has to address the whole issue of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.