The NYT has a good article concerning how our tax dollars are at work in Afghanistan; however, it is not exactly breakfast reading fare for the squeamish:

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The quote that sticks out in my mind is the following:

"One villager reached by telephone, Sayed Ghusuldin Agha, described body parts littered around the landscape. 'It would scare a man if he saw it in a dream,' he said."

This is only one attack, though a particularly awful one, of the many we carry out on the Afghanis day after day. As the linked article notes:

"Civilian deaths — more than 2,000 Afghans were killed last year alone, the United Nations says . . ."

You might want to talk to your monkey-boy, Obama, about that. Do you think we should start calling for him to be prosecuted for war crimes? You know, now that he too is killing civilians?

I can't understand why this continues, can you?...I mean in all the wars we've had in the past, no civilians ever got killed.

Jack

to capture the hearts and minds of the people. And then you've got that morals thing going on.

One cannot save a village by destroying it. One cannot win the hearts and minds of a people by decimating them.

An "asymmetrical war," as Petreaus would put it, cannot be won by killing. It has to be done with economic aid and support of individual freedom, though not necessarily with our notions of Jeffersonian democracy. Unfortunately, our military is trained to kill, not to build and support nations..

Why do I feel the same way now that I did last year, and all the last 6 years and 2 months before that?

The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has nothing to do with installing democracy but all to do with American gas/oil interests in the Middle East, just like Iraq in fact.

"Unfortunately, our military is trained to kill, not to build and support nations.."

It should never be the role of a military to build and support nations. They are, by definition, killing machines. It takes much training to do teach that with no time to develop their nation building skills. It is unrealistic to try and have it both ways. At best, they can act as a protection force for those whose job it is to build and support nations. But, when you are providing protection against brutal fanatics who hid among women and children, you will have problems. I don't have a solution that I believe is really implementable. Pull the army out and the thugs take over. Stay and you risk killing civilians.

The Afghan government has to be willing to spend the years and resources it takes to bring change to their nation by changing the culture. The problem (which is not ours) is that they seem to want to take the easy road and cave to Taliban demands. That was apparent in the law that disallowed a wives right to not have sex (among other reductions in the rights of women) was passed and signed.

Personally, I don't care about winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. I feel for their plight, particularly that of the women. But, I don't think we should be there to implement a free and democratic society. That is not for us to decide and implement. Maybe we have done our job, which was to stop the Taliban from allowing the training and exporting of terrorists. We pack up our bags and leave making sure that everyone knows we will be back with a vengance if it happens again. And, we let them know that the next time, we won't spend a penny rebuilding anything we destroy in the process.

Michael09:

The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has nothing to do with installing democracy but all to do with American gas/oil interests in the Middle East, just like Iraq in fact.

I disagree regarding Afghanistan being about gas and oil interests but not about Iraq. We ended up in this quagmire because we needed to stop the growth of Al Qaeda and the exporting of terrorism. We invaded (which I believe was necessary) but we failed to have a strategy beyond that invasion. We also had no strategy on how to deal with the terrorism already brewing within the border of our new ally, Pakistan. We simply made it worse by chasing terrorists from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Actually our interest in Afghanistan goes back further to an anti-Soviet policy. We didn't care about the people, we just wanted the Soviets to fail there. So, we helped build a base of fundamentalists who later turned to terrorism.

BTW, I was always against the invasion of Iraq.

Does anyone recall why we are even in Afghanistan? Is it because we are freeing that country from the grips of the Taliban? Both the US & UK Governments were quite happy to provide the Taliban with both arms and funds when Afghanistan was occupied by Russia, even that arch villain bogeyman, Bin Laden, was on the American payroll. So why did this relationship break down, was it because of the terrorist attack on 9/11 on the world trade centre? Hardly both the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were actually planned before that event took place.

Was it because the USA could no longer stand by whilst the country was ruled by "Islamic extremists" and a lack of "democracy"? Not at all, the USA/UK were more than happy to have business relationships with the Taliban, the problems began when the business relationship broke down. The strategic location of Afghanistan can scarcely be overstated. The Caspian Basin contains up to $16 trillion worth of oil and gas resources, and the most direct pipeline route to the richest markets is through Afghanistan.

Almost as soon as the Russians had left, the Bridas Corporation of Argentina acquired production leases and exploration contracts in the region, and by November of 1996 had signed an agreement with the Taliban to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. However the American company Unocal had other ideas, even invited the Taliban to meetings in Washington, Berlin, and Islamabad, in an effort to persuade them to cancel the contract with Bridas in exchange for a tidy package of foreign aid. Unfortunately the negotiations between the Taliban, American Government officials and Unocal broke down. According to an article in the UK Guardian, State Department official Christina Rocca then told the Taliban at their last pipeline negotiation in August of 2001, just five weeks before 9/11, 'Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.'

So to conclude the occupation of Afghanistan doesn't have any noble motives, it is based purely on economics, and an US/UK attempt to control the Middle East oil reserves, which also explains the occupation of Iraq and the current threats against Iran over their non-existent nuclear weapons.

Petreaus has his faults, and some big ones, but he is completely right on that score.

Yes, indeed. The, "morals thing," may turn out to be a much bigger headache than we ever imagined.

"Those who have eyes to see with . . ."

children so they invite their own tragedies.

The civilians who are too afraid of the Taliban to speak up?

As a civilized, "Christian" nation we're obligated to kill and/or maim all of the women and children until we also get to that one "Taliban" who is hiding among them! It doesn't matter to us how many women, children, old men and babies we slaughter, it's our "holy duty" to get that nasty "Taliban" no matter what! "For God, Country and Jesus! Amen!"

If our country lives by that rule, it will surely die by it as well.