Obama says he will finish the job in Afghaniistan

The job was a fool's errand to begin with. To wit: to declare total war on a country that ,at worst, housed Osama Bin Laden, much in the way this country housed Tim McVeigh or Britain housed the ShoeBomber. The Bush/Cheney team used the sledgehammer instead of the scalpel to deal with the problem. 8 years later we still soldier on.

Our latest scheme: buy an army to oppose Taliban. Sounds like another hare-brained US Military strategy that we keep on trying in our so-called counter-insurgency plans. Pit one tribe against the other-- Taliban vs. Soviets, Sunnis vs. Shia, Pashtun vs. Tajiks, Ho Chi Minh's Buddhists vs. CIA's Roman Catholics. All of these half-baked plans, sooner or later, come back to haunt us.

Sending in the 40,000 troops that General McChrystal wants, and train more Afghanistan troops and establish a brigade to fight the Taliban is another dead-end. The Afghanis think we’re infidels and occupiers and, as a result, don’t trust us. And isn’t it equally clear that as a result of the Ft. Hood massacre, American troops simply don’t trust the Afghanis? How are we then going to partner with them and train more troops?

The Taliban are the government we overthrew. Basically they represent the largest tribal group in Afghanistan , the Pashtuns at 42% of the population. Fighting these folks will take a long, long time, plus, according to many experts, they are interested in Afghanistan, not in blowing up buildings in the US. Moreover, Al Qaeda, at less than 100 members, are a spent force.

Then there’s the cost issue. Rule of thumb--each thousand troops sent abroad costs $1 billion. So, 40,000 troops , 40 billion per year. Add this to the troops and contractors already in Afghanistan. Comes to over 100 billion a year. This money is to be paid by adding additional debt to our huge deficit, then having the Treasury department print the money and then having the Chinese loan us the money.

Our taxes do pay for the annual $1 trillion military budget (army, navy, air force, coast guard , 1000 overseas military bases, CIA black box operations, Veterans Affairs hospitals, etc.) It all adds up.

And what we get for all our investment in Afghanistan is a lot of deaths, heartaches and corrupt puppet rulers. Pulling out would be a big plus for us--we might lose our influence over the gas and oil pipelines in the region--but we'd be a richer nation for it.

Late stage financial-centric capitalism will destroy itself!

There's hope ! Free-market financial capitalism will go down the tubes. A Wall Street that makes nothing is heading towards oblivion, dragging its' political stooges along with it. Thus went Spain, England and the Dutch. As the great Milton said, "Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. "

Right now the US is running a corrupt, narco-state called Afghanistan. Why?

Right now the US is running a corrupt, narco-state called Afghanistan. Why?

Pipelines. No one mentions the P-word. Energy pipelines, that's why we're there. Friend Karzai once worked as a consultant for the oil giant firm, Unocal. Current government installed by the CIA. Remember, the CIA was sending guys around on horseback with wads of bills in their saddle packs --paying vast sums to the anti-Taliban (And anti -Pushton) Northern Alliance. We provided air support to the NA troops in their fight to defeat the Taliban. The NA won and a lot of corrupt/narco Tajik war lords were put in power. Still there.

A giant pipeline is planned for Afghanistan--one that will bring middle east gas/oil to the west (and avoid, Russia and Iran). That's the holy grail for the US. That's why we are in Afghanistan and that's why Karzai is our man in Kabul. Almost makes you want to stop driving!