In today’s New York Times the lead-off article is entitled Afghans Offer Jobs to Taliban Rank and File if They Defect . Could it really be that simple? The Afghan government seems to be saying "yes".
You have got to be kidding me!
In the Quotation of the Day section we read the following quote.
"Most of the Taliban in my area are young men who need jobs. We just need to make them busy. If we give them work, we can weaken the Taliban."
HAJJI FAZUL RAHIM, an Afghan tribal leader.
If this is the truth, and this actually works to take out the Taliban, then why has it taken us more than eight years of American blood, treasure and thousands of maimed and dead young Americans to implement this incredibly obvious strategy?
If this is true, and it actually works relatively quickly, American generals and diplomats involved in this obvious ongoing deception need to be investigated, imprisoned and possibly executed for treason.
This apparent "oversight" of this incredibly obvious strategy of feeding the hungry to make them less dangerous, is the result of out and out greed-based treason on the part of our diplomats and generals.
This is exactly why Benedict Arnold approached the British at the height of our Revolution and offered his services. He did it for a price. He was handsomely rewarded for his treason.
If what this article states is true and it works, our generals are no better than Arnold was. They need to meet a traitors fate. This is so unbelievably obvious that it challenges credulity to think this was never broached before in strategy meetings.
If this is true and it works it is proof positive that these phony wars in western Asia were deliberately staged for the sole purpose of making billions upon billions for the war industries, the energy cartels and the "emerging market" speculators that have a stranglehold on our government apparatus.
These soul-less parasites have complete control over our government machinery and that of other Western governments at the expense of working class and the lowest levels of middle class kids who have been forced by economic circumstances to enter the Service and fight these senseless wars of profit.
These kids, our kids, have paid for the profits of the elites with their lives, maimed bodies, broken minds and their ruined and empty futures.
If it was up to me, we would have public hangings at the local mall every Saturday.
This approach to containing "the Taliban" must be a thousand times cheaper and less life threatening than what we have tried so far. Is it really this simple?
If the ‘Taliban’, whoever they might actually be and whatever that term actually means, can truly be contained and "turned" by giving them public works project jobs with American money then thousands of people at the very top of our government in military and diplomatic circles are either idiots or treasonous or both.
This is outrageous.
If this works, and this proves to be a pragmatic and relatively effective solution to the ongoing war in Afghanistan and can be applied to Iraq, then heads need to roll, in this country.
If this is an actual basic truth and a viable plan, we have been bamboozled by elements of the "elites" in our own government for the benefit of war-induced profits.
If this is true, if we can win the Afghan War more than eight years on by subsidizing public works projects then our government system needs to be completely and radically reconstructed. Immediately. They have lied to us. Revolution is the only answer at that point. They have lied.
And they’ve killed thousands of our kids and it was all over war marketing profits. They have injured for life hundreds of thousands more so that Ivy League patricians could be turned into revenue hiding, off-shore investing, never-served-in-uniform leeches on the national body.
If investing in public works projects in Afghanistan dilutes the power of the mythical "Taliban" every single officer above the rank of Major/Lcdr needs to be cashiered and every State Department worker above the rank of GS-13 needs to leave government under force of arms. This borders on the surreal.
This is what treason looks like if in fact we could have stopped all this death and pain by subsidizing pulic works projects! People need to pay for this dearly.
In a story that can only be described as "routinely bizarre these days" Kazakh Bank Lost Billions in Western Investments shows how we in the West were living in a pipe dream world of western and central Asian riches where nothing but b.s. was actually the basis for investment.
Our Harvard Business School and London School of Economics and Wharton School of Business geniuses lost $60 billion dollars worth of Western money in Kazakhistan based on nothing more than a twisted psyche stemming from the desire for riches in a country that barely has indoor plumbing for its elites.
You cannot be serious!
This is what they got half a million dollar educations at the finest investment schools in the West to do? They were educated to lose more money earned by Western working class people on Asian pipe dreams than even G*d has available to Him? They all need to be fired.
In this editorial Diplomacy 101, we learn that President Obama must go back to the basics and start over again relative to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. It is the core problem for all of us who want peace in the Middle East. And who doesn’t?
In this Op Ed by Bob Herbert entitled Stacking the Deck Against Kids, we learn what this broken economy is doing to our future, i.e. our kids. This excerpt from his article is very powerful and absolutely true.
The first sentence is bolded. It is the truest statement that I have read in an American newspaper all year.
"The American economy is broken, ruined by the greed and irresponsibility of fabulously wealthy corporate chieftains and their shabby acolytes and enablers in government. While Wall Street is handing out billions in bonuses, American families are struggling with joblessness, home foreclosures and rampant debt. The economic woes are exacting a fierce toll on family life, and children are taking a big hit — emotionally, psychologically and otherwise.
One effect of the Great Recession, according to a recent series in The Times, has been a big jump in the number of runaway children, many of them living in dangerous conditions on the street.
Family homelessness is also up, and poverty is increasing. More than a third of all black children in America are poor, and that tragic percentage is expanding. The outlook for America’s working classes is bleak. A few weeks ago a New York cab driver nearly broke down in tears as he told me he’d had to apply for food stamps to continue feeding his family."
Let me ask you, as an American veteran, how do you feel about this? Are you angry enough to do something? Is an email to your congressman or congresswoman too much to ask? How about sending one now…right now?
Both the DAV and the American Legion operate a tool on their websites that allows you to type in your postal zip code and get all of your political representatives in the House and Senate and the White House lined up to recieve your email. It will take ten minutes to write one. Why don’t you consider it as a chore for every week?
Ask them this question:
Why are we spending money on wars in western Asia that we cannot afford and when public works projects funded with American money could have apparently achieved peace and accomplished our goals at one thousandth the cost of war? Why?
Your duty as a citizen of this republic and as one who has worn her uniform under arms is to stay informed so that your influence on her decision making processes is strong, constant and reliable. You must not shirk this duty to lead. You are needed now more than ever.
Get informed and stay informed. An informed veteran is a comfort to his friends and a danger to his adversaries.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
Addendum: 16:10 Saturday, 28 Nov 09
This is just in from MSNBC News. The story involves the coverage of the British Iraq War investigative hearings now ongoing in the U.K. The headline is U.S. was ‘hell bent’ on Iraq war, U.K. envoy says . This is important and gives a window into just how phony our reasons for going to war actually were.
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