Afghanistan: Haunted by the Ghosts of Vietnam

As always, the Journalist Eric Margolis is right on the mark: Our 107,000 Soldiers in Afghanistan are haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam. As I experienced with the 1/10 Cavalry Squadron in the areas around Banmethuot, Pleiku, and later as Advisory Team Leader north of Kontum and in the hotly contested "Iron Triangle" area around and near Trung Lap, most of "our" Vietnamese allies were no match for the highly dedicated Vietcong enemy, and I sadly began to realize that our ultimate defeat would only be a matter of time!

So will it be in Afghanistan. Like Vietnam, the war is about oil (and gas). In Vietnam, after the remnants of our beaten army barely made an ungraceful helicopter exit from one of the taller buildings in the surrounded and besieged South Vietnamese city of Saigon (now re-named Ho-Chi Minh City), Forbes did an article in 1973, which listed all of the off-shore oil and gas properties which had been of interest to our slimy capitalists, for whom so many of my friends had died in agonizing pain.

This is not true in Afghanistan: Though there is neither oil nor gas in that rocky and barren land, our war is merely about "our" ability to build and defend a pipeline from the areas north of Afghanistan, mostly for the benefit of our multi-national oil barons.

Even George Will says:Time to get out of Afghanistan!

George F. Will, one of America's most prominent conservatives,

says: Enough is enough! The Washington establishment should keep faith with its soldiers by rapidly reversing America's involvement in Afghanistan. Military historian Max Hastings says Kabul controls only about a third of the country.

And that's, all, folks, as Porky Pig used to say!!

I Didn't Want to be Part of this Insane Mission!!

Not my words, but those of Heike Groos, a doctor serving with the German army in Afghanistan. She testifies how the situation has deteriorated to the point of paranoia. The longer she was there, the more doubts she had behind the German "mission" in that country: A suicide bomber blew up one of the German buses, killing four soldiers instantly, and seriously wounding many more. Even to this day, she is still haunted by the memories of the dead German soldiers, who died for an oil and gas pipeline, so that multinational corporations could make record profits!

Meanwhile, NATO handed the Taliban a big political victory because of air strikes in the northern province of Kunduz, which left over 100 people dead and injured. The Taliban portrayed the incident as an intentional massacre. In Germany, well over two thirds of the country already favor a withdrawal of the 4,500 German contingent. Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that the "international community" needed to apply pressure on Kabul to insure that the international engagement can be reduced.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Don't Mess with Afghanistan!!!

Jane Stillwater has it RIGHT! Had we permitted George W. to treat America to a third term, our current policy in that bloody country of Afghanistan, where superpowers go to be humiliated, would be exactly the same as under the "new", and "modern" Obama regime: Please click on the title to read more, including not only Jane's perceptive report - "Don't Mess with Afghanistan", but also that of Robert Scheer: "Obama's Meaningless War". It was because of "W"that We, the Veterans of another futile war (for me it was 'Nam), formed veteransagainsttorture.com in the futile hope that our honorable service to our great nation not be dragged through our enemies' muddy interpretation of our freely-given measure of pain and torment.

Those of us who voted for Obama sincerely believed that we could now hold our head proudly among the other nations. Unfortunately, WE WERE WRONG!!

America's Most Wanted Environmental "Terrorist"

Tre Arrow, born as Michael James Scarpitti, a self -proclaimed "Tree Hugger", came from a well to do family on the outskirts of sun-drenched Palm Beach, where grandiose mansions line the streets and luxury automobiles occupy the driveways.

In his attempt to make a positive contribution to our world's society, he became a tree-hugging vegan who espouses non-violence. On August 12, 2008, he was sentenced in Federal court to six-and-a-half years for lighting three cement haulers ablaze near Portland, Oregon, as well as firebombing two trucks and one front loader owned by Ray Schoppert Logging Company near the timber town of Estacada, Oregon, in protest of the Eagle tree timber sale in Mt. Hood National Forest in the late 1990's.

His supporters point out that the area he was trying to save is located in a roadless area within Oregon's Clackamas watershed, whose streams provide drinking water for over 185,000 people in the greater Portland area. Cutting the trees Michael was trying to save would most probably lead to future landslides and mass flooding, which would most probably lead to future landslides and mass flooding.

Now the people of that area have no more defenders! Please click on the heading to read the rest of the story.

"Quittin" Time in Afghanistan

As Eric Margolis writes so eloquently in the "Toronto Sun", an election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic, and the stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by western "powers" is unlikely to bring either peace or tranquility to this unfortunate nation that has already suffered thirty years of war:

Random death from evil drones bearing death and destruction from "pilots", many miles away in the relative safety of the United States. From their perspective, no resident of Afghanistan is safe from their god-like, or should I say: "Thor-like" penchant for random violence and murder.

How would our citizens in the USA react to random death from an Afghani drone cruising over our highways, killing commuters going to their jobs during rush-hour traffic.

Far fetched? Not necessarily. It just takes a few drones launched from an "unfriendly" neighbor of our country, which is not afraid of our retaliation.

Up a you Essa, Your Honor!!

Failure to communicate accurately is sometimes the beginning of a relentless war: Once upon a time, when a humble Italian immigrant was asked by his US immigration examiner where the "Great Lakes" could be found in America, his response was: "Up a you essa". The same lack of precise information is now a serious stumbling block in our frantic effort to bring Afghanistan under our control. As Eric Margolis, perhaps the best and brightest of our newsmen printed in the "Toronto Sun", an election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic. The Taliban and its nationalist allies rejected the vote as a fraud, designed to validate continued occupation and open the way for western oil and gas pipelines.

Of course, this indisputable fact would, and could NEVER have been printed in the "free" newspapers of our "United States".

This week's stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by the "western powers" - rather WEAK powers, don't you think?

It's a LOT more humiliating than the political torture my family and I endured in what was left of Germany, after the end of the Second World War: Our "news media" assured us that "black is white, and white is black, an you'll believe that, if you know what is good for you.

Unfortunately, this reminded so many of our fellow Germans of the NAZI days, that we just laughed all that shit off, an wished those who had dared to dupe us with that crap to the lower mansions of hell!