Inside Obama's War

In a new joint venture, Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation present "The AfPakChannel" a Web site bringing you the latest news and analysis from the wars and political turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/afpak

Regular features include a daily AfPak-focused news brief, blogging from award-winning journalist Peter Bergen, and ongoing commentary from a distinguished panel of experts on this critical region.


http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/dailybrief

Inside Obama's war is a lot of stupidity and not much else that I can see ....

Viet Nam all over again ....

But Obama would be the very last to know that ....

And so ...

Afghanistan Strategy Debate
Mon, 08/10/2009 - 9:29am

My friend, CNAS colleague, and Gen. McChrystal review team member Andrew Exum has opened up Abu Muqawama for an online dialogue about the strategic rationale for the war in Afghanistan. Thus far he has posted very interesting comments from Scott Wedman, Bernard Finel, and somebody who thus far lacks a name (Ex, you should identify your contributors!). I'm glad that he's doing so, even if this is a debate which should have happened months or years ago. If you're interested in such questions, head on over there and join the fray.

I very rarely write about Afghanistan or Pakistan, primarily because it lies outside of the Arabic-speaking Middle East areas which I know well -- I don't speak the languages, I don't have fine-grained local knowledge, I don't follow the regional media. I can't help noticing that such constraints don't seem to stop anyone else, though. At any rate, I'm not going to join the new Iraq refugees and refocus on the AfPak policy debate. But since Exum has thrown open the question, Foreign Policy is launching its AfPak channel today, and I'm going to be seeing Richard Holbrooke's team at the CAP event on Wednesday, I'll throw out a few thoughts at least.

I have an open mind on these questions, want the U.S. mission to succeed, and have a great deal of confidence in the Obama national security team. I know that there have been a number of policy reviews at all levels of the government on Afghanistan strategy, and that most of the questions I can raise have already been discussed at one or the other. But at the same time, I find the strategic rationale for escalating the war in Afghanistan extremely thin, and the mismatch between avowed aims and available resources frighteningly wide. What are the strategic reasons for expanding the commitment in Afghanistan? Why should the US be committing to a project of armed state building now, in 2009?

I hope that the argument isn't that it's to prevent al-Qaeda from reconstituting itself in the Afghan safe havens. That's a fool's game. It makes sense to keep the pressure on al-Qaeda, but does that require "armed state building"?

Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things). So what? Al-Qaeda (or what we call al-Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasas, into Africa --- into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments. Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world? On whose budget? To his credit, McChrystal adviser Steve Biddle raises all of these questions in his excellent American Interest article from last month -- but in my view goes wrong by limiting the policy options to either full withdrawal or full commitment to COIN.

Another option which used to be on the table, as I understood it, was a much more narrowly focused policy of keeping the pressure on al-Qaeda while letting Afghan politics sort itself out. But from my distance, at least, it seems that this approach is being overwhelmed by those arguing for a much more expansive mission (as Michael Cohen has been documenting for a while under the category title "Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch"). And that worries me. I see why keeping al-Qaeda on the ropes matters. But I just don't really see why trying to build an Afghan state is a significant American national interest, or that it can be done at a price commensurate to its significance.

I fear that the escalation of the war in Afghanistan is following a dangerous path of least resistance. Given the assignment to win the war in Afghanistan, of course a military which has been reshaped by its experience in Iraq will turn to COIN doctrine. Once the decision is made to apply a COIN approach, of course the military is going to ask for more troops there, and a long commitment, since it's always been obvious that really doing COIN in Afghanistan would require vastly more troops than are currently deployed. And then, at each step of the way, there will be a strong tactical argument for expansion and a very difficult sell for any attempt to argue for restraint. Once that iron logic has been accepted, all else follows -- and it becomes extremely difficult to reverse course.

But I remain far from convinced that COIN is the right approach, especially when compared not to total U.S. withdrawal but to a more minimalist strategy. The attraction of COIN seems to derive from learning only partial lessons from Iraq -- conveniently forgetting that the "surge" and COIN were only one of a number of factors contributing to the changing conditions there, along with the Sunni turn against al-Qaeda which long predated the "surge" and the near-completion of sectarian cleansing in many urban areas, and that its long-term success in Iraq is far from guaranteed. And Afghanistan, as should be obvious, is very different from Iraq. Its advocates argue that this simply means that the approach needs to be adapted to the local conditions and the mission adequately resourced. I'm not at all convinced.

The best of the COIN-distas have generated tremendously innovative thinking about how to do COIN, and I'm confident that they will do their best to make this work. But that's a very different question from whether COIN should be done in the first place. Exum does a service by providing a forum -- at CNAS, home of some of that top COIN thinking -- to bring these questions into sharper focus. So I'll be following it with an open mind, and hope others do as well. I know what questions I'll have ready for Holbrooke's team if I get called on....

http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/

George Ure's take:

Coping: The Urge to Surge, II

The report that a "US general wants that Taliban is expanding aggressively in Afghanistan" has me asking again, "What are we doing there?" I mean besides protecting potential pipeline routes and gaining Western control of opium poppy growing? Talk that another 45-thousand soldiers will be needed smacks of Bush II's surge in Iraq - a war which lasted more or less till the oil deals were done.---

If one reads the three purposes of the Afghan war, one observes that two out of three reasons are tied to poppies. Why not decriminalize their use? I know - there he goes again, you're thinking. But this whole War on Drugs is a modern contrivance designed for socioeconomic exploitation. What did humans do for the first, oh, 200,000 years of our species without drug laws and drug wars?

The Drug War is the modern analog to the 1920's Prohibition era and you'll notice that the Wikipedia entry on the Drug War lists "Arguments for the Drug War" but doesn't list arguments against.
---

The real reason for the Drug War is that it's all part of what I call the Manufacturer's Resource Wars which will go on through the collapse of what we laughingly call 'modern' society. The US military presently employs nearly 1.5-million fulltime and another 850,000 in reserves, many of which have been deployed.

We can also pencil out that in order to support each soldier, we employ at least two other people. That would be people making the guns, the airlines flying them around, the folks who stock and operate the BX, the whole - you know - system.

Upholstering my calculator, that's about 2.3 million direct and so times three (one soldier plus two in support) we're at 6.88 million people in the military industry.

Look what would happen if we were to just reduce the military to one-half its present size: The workforce would swell by 3.44 million people and, oh-oh, with no jobs, that would add 3.44 million on the unemployment side. Instead of 9.36% unemployment per the latest BLS report, we would instead have 11.34% unemployment - or higher!

---
Of course that's why we have drug laws, too. So you will go to your licensed and taxed guy in the medical system for your drugs instead of buying some grow lights. Even better, if we continue keeping drugs illegal, we also have the whole law enforcement, prison, rehab industry, too. More employment.

Not saying any of this is bad, just trying to put a little intellectual honesty on the table so we keep our discussions and thinking on the level about such matters. We live in a world where all kinds of human behaviors have been criminalized, everything from speeding to spitting, and out here at the limit of resources someone might ask "Is there a different way?"

Same thing for wars. Nope: The 9/11 hijackers were not Afghans. They were all Saudis. Or, is that one of those inconvenient facts that's been washed from the public consciousness, since we've already got an oil deal with them?

Which leaves only the reason "Because Osama bin Laden might be there" as a reason for the Afghan war. He might also be in Brazil or South Africa, too. If we haven't smoked him out in what's almost 8-years now, you think we maybe need to rethink our approach a bit? Just asking...

Meantime, be ready for the next surge call. Remember the helluva time the Brits had fighting a war on foreign soil against people who were defending their homeland.

http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm

McChrystal Wants Huge Boost In U.S. Civilians In Afghanistan
from War News Updates by Bookyards
U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal arrives to his assumption of a command ceremony as the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in Kabul, Monday, June 15, 2009. Daily News

From McClatchy News:

KABUL, Afghanistan — In addition to requesting some 45,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the country's top American military commander will ask the Obama administration to double the number of U.S. government civilian workers who are in the country.

The proposed civilian "surge" is the fourth leg of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's emerging strategy to rebuild Afghanistan's economy and government, along with more American troops, vastly expanded Afghan security forces and closer cooperation between U.S. and Afghan troops, including posting troops from both countries at the same bases.

Read more ....
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/73407.html

My Comment: If these stories are true, it appears that Gen. Stanley McChrystal will be requesting not only a massive buildup of U.S. military forces to expand the war in Afghanistan, but as a complement to this military surge he will be requesting civilian assistance and resources to conduct what in essence will be "nation building".

President Obama and Congress are not going to approve this request. Ignore the budget busting provisions and the huge amount of killing that will be the result, the political ramifications to their Democratic political base will be explosive if General McChrystal's proposals (if what the media is reporting is true) is accepted. The political bloodletting will be like 1968, when opposition to the Vietnam War split the Democratic party.

The Democratic Party may have been wrong on a lot of things .... but as politicians they are not suicidal.

The Man With the Plan for Bananastan

Jeff Huber questions Gen. McChrystal's expertise

http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2009/08/...for-bananastan/

Right, right ....

My guess is that one fourth of them are suicidal, one fourth are homicidal and one half are just standing by, waiting for their marching orders...

AS IN VIET NAM, AS IN IRAQINAM, AS IN AFGHANISTNAM ...

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES ...

And so ...

"US, NATO deaths from Afghan bombings spike 6-fold - US, NATO deaths from bombings spike 6-fold in Afghanistan; 3 more US troops killed"

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:46 p.m., Tuesday, August 11, 2009

KABUL -- U.S. and NATO deaths from roadside and suicide bomb blasts in Afghanistan soared six-fold in July compared with the same month last year, as militants detonated the highest number of bombs of the eight-year war, figures released Tuesday showed.

Three U.S. Marines and a Polish soldier died in the latest attacks, setting August on course to surpass the record 75 deaths U.S. and NATO troops suffered from all causes in July.

U.S. commanders have long predicted that 2009 would be the deadliest of the war, after President Barack Obama ordered an additional 21,000 troops here to try to quell the rising Taliban insurgency.

A record 62,000 U.S. troops are now in Afghanistan.

U.S., NATO and Afghan troops are working to protect voting sites around the country so Afghans can take part in the country's second-ever direct presidential election Aug. 20.

Taliban militants have vowed to disrupt the elections, and attacks are on the rise around Afghanistan, where roadside bombs are now the cause of the majority of U.S. and NATO deaths.

Last month 49 coalition troops died in bomb attacks, a more than six-fold increase from the eight killed in roadside and suicide bomb attacks in July 2008, according to figures from the U.S.-based Joint IED Defeat Organization.

The number of incidents from IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, soared to 828, the highest level of the war and more than twice as many as in July 2008.

Of those 828 incidents, 410 bombs were found and neutralized and 310 were ineffective.

But 108 bombs were effective, triple the 36 effective attacks a year ago, an increase that suggests militants are getting better at placing and detonating bombs.

"The major challenge today for us is roadside bombs and suicide attacks," said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry.

Azimi said that Taliban militants have figured out that roadside bombs are an efficient and effective method of attack.

"They stay safe while the other side suffers."

Though roadside bombs target U.S., NATO and Afghan troops, the blasts have killed a record number of civilians this year as well.

Nine Afghans riding in a vehicle died in a bomb blast Tuesday in Kandahar province, said Daud Farhad, a doctor at Kandahar's Mirwais hospital.

"The enemy has moved to increase the use of indiscriminate IEDs against our forces as well as the Afghan people," said U.S. Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a spokesman for the NATO-led force.

He said IED attacks are up in part because of increased operations by NATO troops.

Afghan soldier deaths from IEDs are also up sharply, Azimi said, but had no figures.

A roadside bomb in Zabul killed two Afghan soldiers Tuesday, said Lt. Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai.

At least 14 NATO troops, including at least seven Americans, have died in bomb blasts this month.

Some 4,000 U.S. Marines who stormed into southern Helmand province last month were confronted with dozens of bombs buried in Afghanistan's dirt roads.

Militants have become more sophisticated at hiding the bombs, and insurgents have begun planting several in small areas, troops say.

British troops operating in Helmand have also suffered greatly from roadside bombs.

A record number of British troops -- 22 -- died in Afghanistan last month, including 12 from explosions, raising an outcry in Britain about a lack of helicopters and other equipment.

More than 230 coalition troops were wounded in bomb attacks last month, more than triple the 67 wounded last July, U.S. figures show.

Joint Task Force Paladin, the counter-IED unit at the main U.S. base at Bagram, predicted earlier this year that IED attacks would rise 50 percent in Afghanistan in 2009.

A recent U.N. report said at least 1,013 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year from insurgents bombs, compared with 818 for the same period in 2008 -- an increase of 24 percent.

Even as bomb blasts spike in Afghanistan, such attacks have dropped precipitously in Iraq.

No coalition troops died in Iraq last month from bomb attacks, only the second month that's happened since the military began keeping statistics in June 2003.

March 2009 was the other month.

The number of IED incidents in Iraq fell from 557 in July 2008 to 166 last month.

Only nine of those incidents were classified as effective attacks.

The NATO command in Afghanistan said Tuesday that three U.S. troops died in southern Afghanistan in separate "hostile fire incidents."

It did not disclose the exact location of the attacks.

The first died of wounds suffered in an incident that occurred Saturday, another died Sunday and the third died Monday, a NATO statement said.

At least 27 foreign troops, including 18 Americans, have died in August, a record pace, according to an Associated Press count.

July, when 75 troops died, was the deadliest month in Afghanistan for U.S. and NATO forces since the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Forty-four Americans died last month.

A Polish soldier and 22 Taliban insurgents also died in the latest violence.

Polish Capt. Daniel Ambrozinski, 32, disappeared Monday after his foot patrol of about 50 Afghan and Polish troops came under fire, Poland's Defense Ministry said.

His body was found early Tuesday in Ajristan, in eastern Ghazni province.

Afghan officials said clashes and airstrikes in the south of the country killed nearly two dozen Taliban fighters.

Twelve insurgents died in airstrikes and clashes with Afghan and Western forces on the border of Ghazni and Zabul provinces, said Wazir Khan, a local official.

The militants were killed late Monday inside a compound, Khan said.

Ten Taliban were killed in Uruzgan Monday night in a fight with Afghan and foreign troops, Zazai said.

Elsewhere in the south, British troops seized a quarter ton of opium and killed seven militants in a major air assault involving 300 troops and 18 U.S., U.K. and Australian helicopters, officials said.

The troops found 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of wet opium.

Obama's 'Acting Stupidly' in Afghanistan by Stephen M. Walt

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/0...proven_innocent

Political Solution in Afghanistan Possible, but Not by Going Down Current Path by William Pfaff

http://original.antiwar.com/pfaff/2009/08/...tion-in-afghan/

BEWARE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, OBAMA MAGNUS ....

And so ...

"Taliban kill police chief in northern Afghanistan"

Wed Aug 12, 1:18 am ET

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Taliban fighters stormed a district police headquarters in once-quiet northern Afghanistan overnight, killing the police chief and two of his men, an official said, as violence spreads into once safe areas.

The attack, which led to a four-hour gunbattle into the early hours of Wednesday in Kunduz, is the latest in a wave of rising violence a week before an August 20 election which militants have vowed to disrupt.

The attackers struck with small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades under cover of darkness, said Sheikh Saduddin, administrator of the Dasht-e-Archi district of Kunduz province.

The province, north of the Hindu Kush mountains and far from the southern war zone, has been largely quiet since Taliban militants were driven from power in 2001, but has seen escalating attacks in recent months.

This week the overall commander of NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan said militants were advancing from their traditional bastions in the south and east into previously quieter areas in the north and west.

After several hours of fighting, the militants abandoned the building following police reinforcement, Saduddin said.

"They (Taliban) killed the police chief and two other officers."

"Three more police were wounded," he said, giving no information about Taliban casualties.

Violence in Afghanistan, at its worst since U.S. and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001, has increased further ahead of the election.

The United States has sent tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan this year, where the Western force now numbers more than 100,000 for the first time, including 62,000 Americans.

President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday the militants would not be able to disrupt the vote.

(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Peter Graff and Dean Yates)

As Snuffy commented earlier in this thread, US foreign policy decision makers may be primarily concerned that the Taliban might gain control of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Pfaff identifies Bruce Riedel as an advocate for this influence upon Obama's policy in Afghanistan:



Armageddon in Islamabad



Pfaff goes on to comment:



Armageddon at the Top of the World: Not!

On July 28th of this year Cole writes:



Even if there is a probable risk that jihadists get their hands on Pakistani nukes, does the US and NATO military intervention in the region really reduce that risk? Might diplomacy to stabilize the region, direct economic aid to Pakistan, and technical assistance to secure their nuclear arsenal provide better assurances?

What we should do is to go into Pakistan and take all the NU-Q-LAR toys away from those fools over there ....

And so ...

I couldn't agree more and then get the hell out of there.

AND AS LORD OBAMA MAGNUS CONTINUES TO WIN HEARTS AND MINDS IN AFGHANISTNAM, WE HAVE ...

"As Marines push into Afghan town, fire from '360'"

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer

13 AUGUST 2009

DAHANEH, Afghanistan – U.S. aircraft and missiles pounded Taliban mountainside positions around Dahaneh on Thursday as Marines pushed through mudbrick compounds searching for militants in the second day of fighting to seize this strategic southern town.

Also in the south, four NATO service members — three British and one American — were killed in separate explosions Thursday, military officials said.

August's casualty count is likely to surpass the record 75 deaths U.S. and NATO troops suffered in July, the deadliest month for the international force in the nearly eight-year war.

The violence comes as Afghans prepare to vote in Aug. 20 presidential elections.

U.S. Marines launched a major assault Wednesday against Taliban forces in Dahaneh, a town of 2,000 people that controls major trade routes in the northern part of Helmand, the southern province that has become center stage in the war.

By Thursday evening, the Marines and Afghan troops had managed to take about half the town, with Taliban resistance tougher than expected.

As sporadic clashes continued in Dahaneh, Marine Cobra attack helicopters fired rockets at Taliban positions in the nearby mountains where militants were believed firing at troops in the town.

Later, U.S. A-10 fighter-bombers fired multiple rounds into the barren, rocky cliffs overlooking what the Marines call "Hell's Pass," the entrance into the Now Zad valley, and U.S. surface-to-surface missiles, fired from the main Marine base, pounded the hillsides.

Meanwhile in the town, Marines came under heavy machine gun fire as they moved through the streets and alleyways.

"It's coming at us 360 degrees, but we knew they'd try to surround us," said Cpl. Kilani Garber of Middleville, Mich., as the troops ducked for cover.

As they moved through parts of the town abandoned by the Taliban, Marines kicked down or detonated the doors of several compounds from where insurgents were seen firing during the opening day of the assault.

In one compound, troops found numerous empty Kalashnikov bullet casings and a few used heroin syringes.

"They want to fight, then they don't want to fight; we're getting mixed signals from these guys," said Cpl. Mack Williams, 22, from Spruce Pine, N.C., as his unit met yet another outburst of light arms fire in the late afternoon.

At sunset, a Humvee mounted with a loudspeaker drove through neighborhoods the Marines had cleared, broadcasting to residents in their Pashto language that they could register complaints and get compensation for damage suffered in the fighting.

Most residents appeared to have fled those neighborhoods.

Most of those remained were elderly.

"The people here are hostile to outsiders."

"Even if they're not all with the Taliban, they're against us," said Sgt. Hazibullah, who led an Afghan national army unit with the Marines.

He gave only one name.

About 400 Marines and 100 Afghan troops are taking part in the operation to capture Dahaneh — the third major push by U.S. and British forces this summer into Taliban-controlled areas of Helmand.

The province is the center of Afghanistan's lucrative opium business and scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the Afghan war.

The main goals of the latest operation are to oust the Taliban from the area, cut off smuggling routes from neighboring Pakistan, and offer enough security to civilians so that they can vote during the elections next Thursday.

The Marines hope to secure Dahaneh fast enough to set up a voting site, which would be the only one in this district.

Sgt. Hazibullah said a voting center could probably be established here by next week but it was unlikely anyone would vote out of fear of Taliban reprisals.

In London, the British Ministry of Defense said the three British soldiers died when their foot patrol was hit by a bomb near the Helmand town of Sangin, south of Dahaneh.

The U.S. statement gave no details of where the American was killed.

I wonder how many MILLIONS a day this present fiasco is costing us for f***ing nothing, since the people hate us, and will hate us more for destroying their homes and lives as LORD OBAMA MAGNUS tries to win their hearts and minds at the point of an American bayonet ....

All so CORRUPTION can continue to flourish in Afghanistnam under the regime of weak sister American puppet Hamid "THE HAND WRINGER" Karzai ...

And so ...

Common ground, Snuf, especially on the latter ....

And so ..

That might be doable by negotiating a disarmament agreement with provisions for the verification that warheads have been dismantled and fissionable material has been safely disposed of.

A military mission to take out a nuclear arsenal would have a very low probability of success. The idea might be good for an action movie script but in the real world it would likely unfold in a way similar to attempt to rescue embassy hostages in Iran or the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia. The probable result would be making the Pakistani nukes even more loose.

My recommendation is to take part of Afganistan and part of Pakistan and allow the Pashtun Tribe
their own country...Then remove US Military forces from Iraq and Afganistan...

"7 die, 91 wounded in blast near NATO HQ in Kabul"

By RAHIM FAIEZ and JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writers

15 AUGUST 2009

KABUL – A suicide car bomb exploded Saturday outside the main gate of NATO's headquarters five days before Afghanistan's presidential election, killing seven and wounding 91 in the biggest attack in the Afghan capital in six months.

The bomber evaded several rings of Afghan police and detonated his explosives on the doorstep of the international military headquarters, an assault possibly aimed at sending the message that the Taliban can attack anywhere as Afghans gear up for their second-ever direct presidential election.

Militants have warned Afghans not to vote and have threatened to attack voting sites.

The NATO headquarters — where top commander U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is based — sits beside the U.S. Embassy and shares the same street as the presidential palace.

The explosion was the first major attack in Kabul since February, when eight Taliban militants struck three government buildings simultaneously in the heart of the city, an assault that killed 20 people and the eight assailants.

Afghanistan has braced for attacks ahead of the election.

International workers in the country were planning on working from home over the next week or had been encouraged to leave the country.

U.S., NATO and Afghan troops were working to protect voting sites, particularly in regions where militants hold sway.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and said Afghans knew the importance of Thursday's election.

"The enemies of Afghanistan, by conducting such attacks, are trying to create fear among the people as we get close to the election," Karzai said in a statement.

He said Afghans "are not afraid of any threats, and they will go to cast their votes."

Bloodied and dazed Afghans wandered the street after Saturday's blast, which rattled the capital and sent a black plume of smoke skyward.

Children — many of whom congregate outside the NATO gate to sell gum to Westerners — were among the wounded.

Windows of nearby antique shops were shattered and blood smeared the ground.

The Taliban claimed responsibility and said the target was the NATO headquarters and the U.S. Embassy some 150 yards (meters) down the street.

A top Kabul police official blamed al-Qaida.

Brig. Gen. E. Tremblay, the spokesman for the NATO-led force, said some soldiers in the International Security Assistance Force were wounded in the 8:35 a.m. blast.

He did not say how many.

The explosion occurred 30 yards (meters) from NATO's front gate, he said.

Pointing to the civilian casualties, Tremblay said the Taliban were "indiscriminately killing civilians."

Afghan security forces stopped the vehicle in front of NATO headquarters, and then the bomber detonated the explosives, Tremblay said.

"The security measures in place have stopped cold the bombers as planned," he said, calling the latest attack an example of the "residual risk" that remained despite the safety measures taken.

"It's very difficult to stop a suicide bomber."

The blast killed seven Afghans and wounded 91, Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said.

Four Afghan soldiers and Awa Alam Nuristani, a member of parliament and President Hamid Karzai's campaign manager for women, were among the wounded, the ministry said.

"I was drinking tea in our office when a big explosion happened," said Abdul Fahim, an Afghan in his mid-20s who sustained leg injuries.

"I lay on the ground and then I saw wounded victims everywhere, including police and civilians."

The chief of Kabul's criminal investigation department, Abdul Ghafar Sayadzada, said 600 pounds (272 kilograms) of explosives were used, and that because of the amount he suspected al-Qaida was involved.

The attacker passed three police checkpoints, Sayadzada said.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the blast and said the bomb contained 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of explosives.

Mujahid at first said the bomber was on foot, then later called back and said it was a suicide car bomb attack.

The attack falls in line with increasingly spectacular and sophisticated strikes carried out by Afghanistan militants.

The Taliban have carried out several coordinated attacks in the last several months with multiple teams of insurgents assaulting government sites.

Military analysts have said the increased sophistication comes from training by al-Qaida operatives.

NATO headquarters has several large, cement blocks and steel gates that prevent anyone from reaching the entrance, and the bomber was not able to breach those barriers.

Afghanistan's Transportation Ministry lies across the street from NATO headquarters.

Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said a suicide bomber named Ahmadullah from the Bagrami district of Kabul province carried out Saturday's attack.

A driver from the nearby Defense Ministry said he took at least 12 people to the hospital.

Most were seriously wounded, said the driver, who spoke to an Associated Press reporter at the scene but didn't want to give his name because of safety concerns.

Kabul has been relatively quiet over the last half year, though militants have launched a barrage of rockets into the capital this month, most of which landed harmlessly in open spaces.

Security has increased over the last several weeks in preparation for Thursday's vote.
___

Associated Press writer Amir Shah contributed to this report.

Livyjr, what do you think of the option of allowing the Pashtun Tribe to have their own country?

Should we have the formality of consulting with the Pashtuns to see if they even want their own country?

For Afghanistan I think one thing looks obvious, only a very decentralized structure is likely to work in the long run.

I guess I am first curious, rla, as to where ANYBODY here in the USA gets to make that call for people who have been where they are on the other side of the world for thousands of years without our help or assistance in getting there in the first place, and then staying there ....

And your question brings to mind the Shoshone Indian Nation out in Wyoming ...

As you may recall, the Shoshone aided and assisted Lewis and Clark, and they never made war on the U.S. or on wagon trains going west ....

And in the American war against the Souix, Northern Cheyanne and Arapahoe, the Shoshone aided the U.S. Cavalry as scouts and light cavalry ....

Accordingly, they were "awarded" or "allowed" by the U.S. government to retain their own historic tribal lands as their own "country", similar to what you are suggesting for the Pashtuns in Afghanistnam ....

Then, after their service to the U.S. government, the U.S. government in return took land from the Shoshone and settled the defeated Arapahoe on those lands of the Shoshone, even though they were traditional enemies that the Shoshone had just helped the U.S. government to defeat ...

So, for aiding the U.S. government and not being warlike against the U.S. government, the Shoshone ended up worse than they were before, and the defeated Arapahoe ended up better off, since thanks to the courtesy of the U.S. government, they now had the land of those who helped defeat them, and they did not have to travel any great distance now to find and kill Shoshone ....

And I bet the moral of that story is not lost on the Pashtuns in Afghanistnam, rla ....

If you deal with Washington, D.C., it will be dirty dealing on their part, at best ....

So why should they do it?

And so ...

My assumption is that if the US stopped assisting the puppit governments we've helped establish in
Afganistan and in Pakistan fight the Pashtuns, they would in effect have the territory between the two that they have always controled all these years. All the US would need to do is leave them alone and acknowledge them.

The interesting thing about this all, rla, is that Hamid "THE GUCCI GUERILLA" Karzai, the American puppet in charge of Afghanistnam, is himself a Pashtun, as is Zalmay Khalilzad, who is said to have recruited Karzai into the American fold ...

Khalilzad, of course, is a notorious BUSH-ITE ...

According to Mr. Goggle http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hamid_Karzai , several of Karzai's brothers and a sister ran, and still run, 'Helmand' (a province west of Kandahar) brand Afghan restaurants in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore ....

And during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistnam, Karzai spent time here in the U.S., where it was both soft and safe for him while the fighting was goinmg on over there ...

And the Taliban are also Pashtun ...

So it would seem to me to be an inter-tribal rivalry going on there in Afghanistnam, with the U.S. backing the corrupt HAND-WRINGER Karzai, who is too weak in Afghanistnam to back himself against his fellow Pashtuns who are with the Taliban, and who are against the American corruption in Afghanistnam that the HAND-WRINGER Karzai is for ...

And the people we are fighting in Afghanistnam are those who fought the Soviets on our behalf ...

All in all, it is the typical American mess in a foreign country, just as was the case with the corrupt American puppet Diem in Viet Nam who was using his army and secret police to repress his own people and to extort from them, while eliminating Diem's political enemies, just as we are presently eliminating the weak sister Karzai's political enemies for him today in Afghanistnam .....

INTRIGUE, rla ....

It seems to be in the blood of those who inhabit the corrupt ten miles square of Washington, D.C., which is an IMPERIAL CITY, not an American city, to eternally meddle in the affairs of others on this earth of ours at our expense, of course ...

You should try to get ahold of a movie by the German filmmaker Werner Herzog entitled Aguirre, Wrath of God, and watch it with your wife in attendance, so she can comment on it afterwards ...

It is about the Spanish CONQUISTADOR Pizzaro's expedition to South America in search of EL DORADO ...

GLORY, WEALTH, AND POWER, rla ....

Through gold ....

You are not living if you don't have GLORY, WEALTH AND POWER ....

As a judge said up here just recently to former U.S. Surgeon General and now convicted felon Dr. Antonia Novello, "Power, Dr. Novello, is a narcotic" ....

And so it seems to be, rla ....

I think that that is what drives our policy in Afghanistnam, just as it drove the Spanish CONQUISTADORS in their slaughter in South America and Mexico back when ...

An addiction to that narcotic ...

It seems a permanent part of the human condition in "westernized" society ....

Or our part of it, anyway ....

How many other countries on the face of the earth do you think you could wake up in the morning to the news of how many more people in a foreign land your country had killed the night before?

The daily BODY COUNT ....

Outside of England, I mean ....

And some third-world repressive HELLHOLES ...

And so ...

IS HAMID KARZAI ANYTHING MORE THAN A PUPPET?

http://hamidkarzai.com/

Aguirre, the Wrath of God

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (German: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) is an independent 1972 German film written and directed by Werner Herzog.

Klaus Kinski stars in the title role.

The soundtrack was composed and performed by German progressive/Krautrock band Popol Vuh.

Aguirre was given an extensive arthouse theatrical release in the United States in 1977, and remains one of the director's most famous films.

The story follows the travels of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado.

Using a minimalist story and dialogue, the film creates a vision of madness and folly, counterpointed by the lush but unforgiving Amazonian jungle.

Although based loosely on what is known of the historical figure of Aguirre, the film's story line is, as Herzog acknowledged years after the film's release, a work of imagination.

Some of the people and situations may have been inspired by Gaspar de Carvajal's account of an earlier Amazonian expedition, although Carvajal was not present on the historical voyage represented in the film.

Aguirre was the first of five filmic collaborations between Herzog and the volatile Kinski.

Herzog knew Kinski would be perfect as the mad Aguirre, but the director and actor had differing views as to how the role should be played, and they clashed throughout the film's production.

Kinski's legendary angry tantrums terrorized the crew and local natives who assisted the production.

The production was shot entirely on location, and was fraught with unusual difficulties.

Filming took place in the Peruvian rainforest on the Amazon River during an arduous five week period, shooting on tributaries of the Ucayali region.

The cast and crew climbed mountains, cut through heavy vines to open routes to the various jungle locations, and rode treacherous river rapids on rafts built by natives.

Aguirre opened to widespread critical acclaim, and quickly developed a large international cult film following.

Several critics have declared the film a masterpiece, and it has appeared on Time Magazine's list of "All Time 100 Best Films".

Aguirre’s visual style and narrative elements would have a strong influence on Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now.

Plot

In 1560, a thousand Spanish conquistadors, and a score of captured Indians, march down from Quito in the Andes mountains into the jungle below.

Under the command of Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés), the party's mission is to find El Dorado.

The men, clad in half armor, pull cannons through narrow mountainous paths and hot, thickly humid jungle.

After much difficulty, Pizarro orders a small expeditionary group of forty men to continue ahead by rafting a river.

If they do not return to the main party within one week with news of what lies beyond, they will be considered lost.

Pizarro chooses Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) as the leader of the exploratory team.

Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) is named second-in-command.

He is accompanied by his young daughter, Florés (Cecilia Rivera, in her only film role).

One of the four rafts becomes separated from the others and gets caught in an eddy.

A rescue team is unable to approach the raft until the following day, when all men on the raft are discovered killed by unknown attackers.

Ursúa wants the bodies to be brought back to camp for proper burial.

Knowing this would slow down the expedition, Aguirre orders Perucho (Daniel Ades) to shoot a cannon at the raft.

The corpses are blown apart.

During the night, the remaining rafts are swept away by the rising river.

Since supplies start to run out and things get progressively worse, Ursúa decides that their mission is hopeless and orders them to return to the main group.

Desirous of power, Aguirre takes the opportunity to lead a rebellion against Ursúa, telling the men that untold riches await them ahead.

Ursúa and a soldier loyal to him are shot.

Ursúa's mistress, Inez (Helena Rojo), cares for them.

Aguirre, unsure of the loyalty of soldiers, sarcastically suggests the fat, lazy Don Fernando de Guzman (Peter Berling) as the token leader of the expedition.

Aguirre proclaims Guzman Emperor in the New World, “dethroning” Philip II.

A farcical trial of Ursúa results in his being sentenced to death, but Guzman surprises Aguirre by refusing to allow this to happen.

Instead, Guzman pardons Ursúa.

Aguirre proves to be an oppressive leader, so terrifying that few protest his leadership.

Those who complain are killed.

Only Inez has the courage to speak out against him.

Knowing that some of the soldiers are still loyal to Ursúa, Aguirre simply ignores her comments.

The expedition continues on a single, newly built, large raft.

An Indian couple approaching with a canoe is captured by the explorers, but when the man expresses confusion at the sight of a Bible, he and his wife are murdered at the insistence of the expedition's priest, Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro).

Some days later, Guzman is found dead near the outhouse.

Taking advantage of Guzman's death, Aguirre proclaims himself leader.

Ursúa is then taken ashore and hanged in the jungle.

The group attacks an Indian village, where many of the explorers are killed by spears.

The distraught Inez walks into the jungle and disappears.

Aguirre is now the ruler of a group of slowly starving, hallucinating men.

The group gapes in awe at a wooden ship perched in the highest branches of one of the tall trees.

In a final Indian attack, all remaining survivors including Aguirre’s daughter are killed by arrows.

Aguirre remains alone on the slowly circling raft.

The raft becomes overrun by monkeys.

The crazed Aguirre tells them:

"I, the Wrath of God, will marry my own daughter and with her I will found the purest dynasty the world has ever seen."

"Together, we shall rule this entire continent."

"We shall endure."

"I am the Wrath of God!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre,_the_Wrath_of_God

I am aware of this part of the narrative and the situation isn't much different in Pakistan except the
Army has more political power in Pakistan.

The army also has considerable political power right here in the USA ...

Pakistan is a political creation of the ever-meddling British ...

There is a nation that should be dismantled if we are to ever hope for true world peace ...

Actually, both of them should be ...

And so ...

I don't mean to romantcize the Pashtuns. The only thing that need be said about them is that they are not the modern Afganistan or Pakistan, whatever that is or becomes. What the US needs is an exit
strategy...The world is in a very rapid state of flux and that include our little corner of it... The rate of change is about to exculate rapidly...

SPEAKING OF THE BRITISH AND MEDDLING AND WAR AND BLOODSHED ...

THE OPIUM WAR

The Opium War, also called the Anglo-Chinese War, was the most humiliating defeat China ever suffered.

In European history, it is perhaps the most sordid, base, and vicious event in European history, possibly, just possibly, overshadowed by the excesses of the Third Reich in the twentieth century.

By the 1830's, the English had become the major drug-trafficking criminal organization in the world; very few drug cartels of the twentieth century can even touch the England of the early nineteenth century in sheer size of criminality.

Growing opium in India, the East India Company shipped tons of opium into Canton which it traded for Chinese manufactured goods and for tea.

This trade had produced, quite literally, a country filled with drug addicts, as opium parlors proliferated all throughout China in the early part of the nineteenth century.

This trafficking, it should be stressed, was a criminal activity after 1836, but the British traders generously bribed Canton officials in order to keep the opium traffic flowing.

The effects on Chinese society were devestating.

In fact, there are few periods in Chinese history that approach the early nineteenth century in terms of pure human misery and tragedy.

In an effort to stem the tragedy, the imperial government made opium illegal in 1836 and began to aggressively close down the opium dens.

Lin Tse-hsü

The key player in the prelude to war was a brilliant and highly moral official named Lin Tse-hsü.

Deeply concerned about the opium menace, he maneuverd himself into being appointed Imperial Commissioner at Canton.

His express purpose was to cut off the opium trade at its source by rooting out corrupt officials and cracking down on British trade in the drug.

He took over in March of 1839 and within two months, absolutely invulnerable to bribery and corruption, he had taken action against Chinese merchants and Western traders and shut down all the traffic in opium.

He destroyed all the existing stores of opium and, victorious in his war against opium, he composed a letter to Queen Victoria of England requesting that the British cease all opium trade.

His letter included the argument that, since Britain had made opium trade and consumption illegal in England because of its harmful effects, it should not export that harm to other countries.

Trade, according to Lin, should only be in beneficial objects.

To be fair to England, if the only issue on the table were opium, the English probably (just probably) would have acceded to Lin's request.

The British, however, had been nursing several grievances against China, and Lin's take-no-prisoners enforcement of Chinese laws combined to outrage the British against his decapitation of the opium trade.

The most serious bone of contention involved treaty relations; because the British refused to submit to the emperor, there were no formal treaty relations between the two countries.

The most serious problem precipitated by this lack of treaty relations involved the relationship between foreigners and Chinese law.

The British, on principle, refused to hand over British citizens to a Chinese legal system that they felt was vicious and barbaric.

The Chinese, equally principled, demanded that all foreigners who were accused of committing crimes on Chinese soil were to be dealt with solely by Chinese officials.

In many ways, this was the real issue of the Opium War.

In addition to enforcing the opium laws, Lin aggressively pursued foreign nationals accused of crimes.

The English, despite Lin's eloquent letter, refused to back down from the opium trade.

In response, Lin threatened to cut off all trade with England and expel all English from China.

Thus began the Opium War.

The War

War broke out when Chinese junks attempted to turn back English merchant vessels in November of 1839; although this was a low-level conflict, it inspired the English to send warships in June of 1840.

The Chinese, with old-style weapons and artillery, were no match for the British gunships, which ranged up and down the coast shooting at forts and fighting on land.

The Chinese were equally unprepared for the technological superiority of the British land armies, and suffered continual defeats.

Finally, in 1842, the Chinese were forced to agree to an ignomious peace under the Treaty of Nanking.

The treaty imposed on the Chinese was weighted entirely to the British side.

Its first and fundamental demand was for British "extraterritoriality"; all British citizens would be subjected to British, not Chinese, law if they committed any crime on Chinese soil.

The British would no longer have to pay tribute to the imperial administration in order to trade with China, and they gained five open ports for British trade: Canton, Shanghai, Foochow, Ningpo, and Amoy.

No restrictions were placed on British trade, and, as a consequence, opium trade more than doubled in the three decades following the Treaty of Nanking.

The treaty also established England as the "most favored nation" trading with China; this clause granted to Britain any trading rights granted to other countries.

Two years later, China, against its will, signed similar treaties with France and the United States.

Lin Tse-hsü was officially disgraced for his actions in Canton and was sent to a remote appointment in Turkestan.

Of all the imperial officials, however, Lin was the first to realize the momentuous lesson of the Opium War.

In a series of letters he began to agitate the imperial government to adopt Western technology, arms, and methods of warfare.

He was first to see that the war was about technological superiority; his influence, however, had dwindled to nothing, so his admonitions fell on deaf ears.

It wasn't until a second conflict with England that Chinese officials began to take seriously the adoption of Western technologies.

Even with the Treaty of Nanking, trade in Canton and other ports remained fairly restricted; the British were incensed by what they felt was clear treaty violations.

The Chinese, for their part, were angered at the wholescale export of Chinese nationals to America and the Caribbean to work at what was no better than slave labor.

These conflicts came to a head in 1856 in a series of skirmishes that ended in 1860.

A second set of treaties further humiliated and weakened the imperial government.

The most ignominious of the provisions in these treaties was the complete legalization of opium and the humiliating provision that allowed for the free and unrestricted propagation of Christianity in all regions of China.

The Illustrated Gazatteer of Maritime Countries

China's defeat at the hands of England led to the publication of the Illustrated Gazatteer of Maritime Countries by Wei Yüan (1794-1856).

The Gazatteer marks the first landmark event in the modernization of China.

Wei Yüan, a distinguished but minor official, argued in the Gazatteer that the Europeans had developed technologies and methods of warfare in their ceaseless and barbaric quest for power, profit, and material wealth.

Civilization, represented by China, was in danger of falling to the technological superiority of the Western powers.

Because China is a peaceful and civilized nation, it can overcome the West only if it learns and matches the technology and techniques of the West.

The purpose of the Gazatteer was to disseminate knowledge about the Europeans, their technologies, their methods of warfare, and their selfish anarchy to learned officials.

It is a landmark event in Chinese history, for it was the first systematic attempt to educate the Chinese in Western technologies and culture.

This drive for modernization, begun by Lin Tse-hsü and perpetuated by Wei Yüan would gain momentum and emerge as the basis for the "Self-Strengthening" from 1874 to 1895.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM

I didn't take it that you were romanticizing anyone, rla ...

Rather, I took it that you were doing some positing or musing ...

I will tell you from my own experiences in Viet Nam that those people over there did not at all take kindly to our jamming our supposedly modern lifestyle down their throats ...

Where I was in Viet Nam in 1969, there was no electricity and never had been ....

And there were no motorized vehicles except for the occasional motorcycle or minibus ....

The people carried their goods to market on foot with a shoulder yoke to carry the baskets on either end, or on ox carts with wooden wheels ....

They lived in mud huts with thatch or tin roofs ...

And they were quite content with that lifestyle, which America, in its wisdom of course, condemned, likely because there was no money in it for us ....

As you say, rla, the world is in a state of flux ....

And the future belongs to the most efficient ....

I wonder who that will turn out to be ....

And so ...

The removal of the Indians (circa 1830's) was explained by Lewis Cass - Secretary of War, governor of the Michigan territory, minister to France, presidential candidate:

A principle of progressive improvement seems almost inherent in human nature .....

We are all striving in the career of life to acquire riches of honor, or power, or some other object, whose possession is to realize the daydreams of our imaginations; and the aggregate of these efforts constitutes the advance of society.

But there is little of this in the constitution of our savages.

Cass - pompous, pretentious, honored (Harvard gave him an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1836, at the height of Indian removal) - claimed to be an expert on the Indians.

But he demonstrated again and again, in Richard Drinnon's words (Violence in the American Experience: Winning the West), a "quite marvelous ignorance of Indian life".

As governor of the Michigan Territory, Cass took millions of acres from the Indians by treaty: "We must frequently promote their interest against their inclination."

His article in the North American Review in 1830 made the case for Indian Removal.

We must not regret, he said, "the progress of civilization and improvement, the triumph of industry and art, by which these regions have been reclaimed, and over which freedom, religion, and science are extending their sway."

He wished that all this could have been done with "a smaller sacrifice; that the aboriginal population had accomodated themselves to the inevitable change of their condition ....."

"But such a wish is vain."

"A barbarous people, depending for subsistence upon the scanty and precarious supplies furnished by the chase, cannot live in contact with a civilized community."

Drinnon comments on this (writing in 1969):

"Here were all the necessary grounds for burning villages and uprooting natives, Cherokee and Seminole, and later, Cheyanne, Phillipine, and Vietnamese."

- pp.131,132; A People's Hitory of the United States by Howard Zinn

We do need an exit strategy, rla ....

An exit strategy from overpowering arrogance ....

But I'm not holding my breath, waiting for it to happen in my lifetime ....

And so ...

Ali Jinnah must be turning in his grave...

For those who don't know who he was, here's a hint. He wasn't British.

You are right that we Americans are quite often arrogant and clueless when we mess up in trying to influence others.

But your post here is ironic, if unintentionally so.

Now that the Vietnamese Communists have had their victory against us under their belts for a few decades now, what kind of lifestyle do they seem to be striving for, quite independent of our meddling?

When was the last time you something that was "Made in Vietnam"? Perhaps the last time you were at something like a department store or Wal-Mart?

Every process creates a record of that process. The process of human beings living their lives in transactions with their environment, including the other human beings in their cohort group is recorded
within multi-sensory and multi-media structures that can be perceived/conceived by the participants
and by more specialized observers...

As town-hall meeting erupted throughout the country this past week to discuss the proposed health
care reform bills being considered by Congress and shaped by the executive department leadership,
special interest lobbying groups, the Media and individual citizens, a selected sample of these events
were set upon by an organized effort to disrupt the meetings and kill the healthcare reform movement.
The TV news system and right wing talk radio zeroed in on the most conflicted and uncivil meetings
so that it appeared for awhile that the entire country was on the edge of revolution...It is becomming increasing clear that the relatively small set of events that got all the attention were only a small fraction of the town hall meetings held on health care reform this week...

Even in the slower moving print media, coverage tends to emphasize the unusual rather than the usual..This same kind of phenomenon can be seen in the writing and re-writing of History. The social
and behavioral "Sciences"--Theology, Psychology and Sociology, in studying the human person, in interaction with the environment including other human beings, up through most of the 20th century
also focused mostly on what went wrong in human development...The 21st century prevents us with
a paradygm shift of studying extrordinarily positive human develop that goes right and how such human beings can organize themselves to build a more desirable social systems. This requires that our analyses of what is be linked to our analyses of what could be...

I am asking for your help in applying your tremendous store house of knowledge and skill to this effort...

If it is sold at Wal-Mart you can be sure that there has been a lot of meddling going on all the way back to the original sources...

I also call on the rest of the candid world out there to share your thoughts about a US Exit Plan
from Afganistan?

I hope the dude has room in there to do so, Arneoker, without snagging himself on a nail head or something .....

And I am talking about the borders of Pakistan with Afghanistnam and India and Kashmir ....

Obviously, from their recent history, those abject fools over there are in charge of their own affairs, to include their nukes and tribal regions ....

So let us see here, since Arneoker has so very graciously brought the subject up for us in his own inimitable way ....

The History of Pakistan as a state began with independence from British India on 14 August 1947 ....

The political history of eventual birth of the country began in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which culminated in 90 years of direct rule by the British Crown, and, subsequently, spawned a successful freedom struggle led by the Indian National Congress and later by the All India Muslim League .....

Did you happen to notice that, Arneoker?

90 years of direct rule by Britain spawned a successful freedom struggle ....

How about that, isn't it?

WHAT OTHER COUNTRY'S HISTORY DOES THAT REMIND YOU OF?

(HINT: HOW ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?)

And moving right along here, thanks to Mr. GOGGLE and Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Pakistan , on 29 December 1930, the poet Muhammad Iqbal called for an autonomous "state in northwestern India for Indian Muslims".

THEN, FOLLOWING THAT, Arneoker's main man Muhammad Ali Jinnah espoused the Two Nation Theory and led the Muslim League to adopt the Lahore Resolution of 1940, demanding the formation of an independent Pakistan.

So Pakistan became independent from British India as a Muslim-majority state with two wings to the east and northwest of India respectively.

And foreshadowing where we are today, independence resulted in communal riots across India and Pakistan — as millions of Muslims moved to Pakistan and millions of Hindus and Sikhs moved to India.

Disputes arose over several princely states including Kashmir and Jammu whose ruler had acceded to India following an invasion by tribesmen from Pakistan.

This led to the First Kashmir War (1948) which ended with India administrating roughly two-thirds of the state and Pakistan occupying the remainder.

Then, a republic was declared in 1956 but was stalled by a coup d'etat by Ayub Khan (1958–69), who ruled during a period of internal instability and a second war with India in 1965.

Then, economic grievances and political dissent in East Pakistan led to violent political tensions and army repression, escalating into civil war followed by the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and ultimately the secession of East Pakistan as the independent state of Bangladesh.

Then, civilian rule resumed from 1972 to 1977 under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, until he was deposed by General Zia-ul-Haq, who became the country's third military president.

As I was saying, Arneoker .....

And so ...

I hate to pop your balloon and rain all over your parade, Arneoker, but I don't think that I have ever bought something that was made in Viet Nam ....

And I don't go to Walmart or department stores ....

I won't go to Walmart, because I can't stand the places, and I am not all that much of a binge shopper, or shop-a-holic, or shop-til-you-dropper, so you usually don't find me anywhere near a department store ...

I have shirts that were made in Sri Lanka, but the last I knew, that was not a part of Viet Nam ....

I do have a punji stick that was made in Viet Nam, but that was not for export ....

And I have a hand-painted sign with a skull and cross-bones that says in Vietnamese "YOU DIE!" that warned us to not enter the mine field that we went and entered anyway until 11 people got their $*** blown away shortly thereafter ...

But that wasn't a trade good for export, either ....

So the answer is I don't have anything made in Viet Nam that I bought over here .....

Sooo ....

How about you?

And so ....

I believe that Ho Chi Minh was a NATIONALIST who knew quite a bit about American history, and who wondered why his people could not be free of foreign interference in their own country if we could be over here, Arneoker ...

Just saying ....

And so ...

I'm still hanging with you in here, rla, following your lead and considering your guidance as we move along ....

Obviously, or perhaps not so obviously, since we are separated by time and space, with you down there and me up here, with almost 2,000 miles in between, my environment up here, including interactions with the cohort group surrounding me, colors how I see the world and the direction it is moving in, which I see as away from the civilized and over to the increasingly violent ....

HEART OF DARKNESS by Josph Conrad, rla ....

Have you ever read it?

My take from my reading of it is that the veneer of civilization is very, very thin, and the glue that purportedly holds it on is some real, cheap crappy stuff ....

And so ....

Each morning, rla, I scan down through the news to see if the world got destroyed last night and what the latest BODY COUNT by U.S. forces in Afghanistnam and Pakistan is .....

Isn't it great, by the way, to live in a nation that lets you know each day how many people it killed somewhere in the world in the last 24-hour period?

Anyway, this is what greeted me this morning as a part of the record of the process of human beings here in the USA living their lives in transactions with their environment, including the other human beings in their cohort group .....

Sun Aug 16, 2009 12:13 am EDT

"Great fight ends as first round horn sounds, Cyborg punches too much"

By Steve Cofield

What an atmosphere and what a one-round fight.

Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos slugged it out all over the cage for what seemed like the longest five-minute round in MMA history.

Cyborg was slightly ahead in the round when she got the fight to the ground with less than 20 seconds left.

Carano covered up and took 15 unanswered shots on her arms and to the face through her guard.

When Carano wasn't moving or defending herself, referee Josh Rosenthal felt compelled to stop the fight.

The crowd seemed to think he could've held off since there was just one second left in the round.

Cyborg (8-1) wins the Strikeforce women's featherweight title at the 4:59 mark of the first.

Carano (7-1) was emotional in the cage as they announced the winner and handed the belt to Cyborg.

It was the first loss of her career.

She was more than competitive throughout withstanding multiple flurries and attacks from Cyborg.

She actually powered out of a kimura attempt with less than 45 seconds left in the round.

And at times she looked like the crisper striker.

But the volume coming from Cyborg was eventually too much to deal with.

Cyborg delivered as a minus-170 favorite on Las Vegas betting boards.

The HP Pavilion rocked before and during the fight.

There wasn't a three second break in the action during the fight and much of the crowd was on it feet for the entire fight.

It easily matched the atmosphere of any UFC or Strikeforce card featuring all male fighters.

Now the question is, can Strikeforce and women's fighting build the sport around someone who isn't a beauty queen.

Whether that statement offends you or not, reality is there was a reason Carano was part of American Gladiators and did so many appearances on shows like Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel.

That said, Carano is also far from finished.

She proved even in a loss that she's a legitimate fighter.

Maybe we see a rematch after both fighters get to test their skills against some of the other women as the sport grows.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewrite...rn=mma%2C183104

There is the QUESTION OF THE DAY in America, rla ....

Not healthcare ....

Soooo ....

Can they, do you think?

Is beauty all that very important when it comes to putting women in a cage to pummel each other for the crowd's enjoyment?

Or do you think it is based solely on punching ability?

And so ...

Fly predators are such ecological jewels and ants know how to organize their work groups better
than most organisms, so why does the fu*king ants have to eat the fly predators? The last batch
we put out, we put them in a bowl to hatch out and set that bowl in a large flat pan of water so the
ants couldn't get to them...When they start hatching out half of them crawl over the side of the
bowl and drown, rather than fly away to freedom...

I saw on TV, a brigade of women Marines in full battle gear, with head scarfs on, that were deployed in Afganistan to talk to the Afgan women...I thought, "That's cool."

Does the future belong to the most efficient or the most effective?

Or does the future belong to those with the highest product of efficience X effectiveness?...those with a system's
perspective?