European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Clap harder, dammit!

by Colman
Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 05:33:40 AM EST

So, the West (defined today as the US and it's vassal military states - called "NATO") is engaged in a dirty war in Afghanistan, the sort of war that makes a mockery of pretty much every ideal we pretend to hold dear, the sort of war in which much admired elite forces launch rocket attacks against schools and then pretend that they're surprised they killed kids, against an enemy who isn't there, with the victory conditions being putting in place a particular subset of evil bastards who we think we might be able to business with in the future, and the problem is that we're not clapping hard enough.

Right.

If you are pro-troop, pro-NATO, pro-US, pro-EU, pro-Afghan, anything other than pro-war-for-the-sake-of-it, you should be working to end this insanity. There is no victory there, no face worth saving, no advantage worth gaining. There is only blood, and death and wasted treasure and disgrace.

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Clap harder, dammit! | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

And profit. Also.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 06:19:14 AM EST

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 0)

Exactly. The wealthy getting wealthier, and that fuels it all. And you can't stop it, while the US lasts.

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 06:36:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (4.00 / 3)

What would we do without Wikileaks?

Bloomberg's take

The New York Times said the reports show the difficulties of fighting a war while hamstrung by "an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence" and by a Pakistani military that at times appeared to be helping the insurgents the U.S. is trying to defeat.

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 07:43:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

What would we do without Wikileaks?

Throw a party. Give them an award.

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 07:47:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

Sorry. Thought your comment read "What would we do about Wikileaks?"

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 07:48:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (4.00 / 2)

"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," Jones said in a statement issued by the White House yesterday. Wikileaks "made no effort to contact" the administration about the documents, he said.

But I thought they were inaccurate and irrelevant. When will they make up their minds?

by gk (g k quattro due due sette "at" gmail.com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 08:10:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

"The United States strongly condemns ...

You mean the criminal US government condemns, as any criminal organization would.

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 08:16:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (4.00 / 2)

much admired elite forces launch rocket attacks against schools and then pretend that they're surprised they killed kids,

Of course they're surprised. They paid top price to a guy with a beard for first class intelligence who said the Talibs were in that building over there. And their satellites confirmed that suspicious people were coming in and out, some of them were wearing obviously Islamic clothing.

So it was all true, how did those children get there ?

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 08:44:32 AM EST

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

Afghanistan war logs: Recriminations fly over alleged support for Taliban | World news | The Guardian

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan deteriorated sharply today as officials from both countries traded angry accusations over the leaked US military documents suggesting Pakistan's spy service is entwined with the Taliban.
Waheed Omar, a spokesman for the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, was blunt in his finger-pointing. Referring to Pakistan, he said: "The war on terrorism will not succeed unless we address the root causes ... the role forces behind the borders of Afghanistan play in destabilising activity here in Afghanistan."
He added: "We will not be able to defeat terrorism in the villages of Afghanistan unless we pay attention to the places where terrorism has been nurtured, where terrorists are kept, where they are given sanctuary, where they are given ideal motives to carry out their attacks in Afghanistan."
An official with Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), questioned the reliability of Afghan intelligence-gathering. "The majority of these [documents] are preliminary reports and they are mostly from Afghan intelligence, so you can imagine their credibility," the official said.

never let desperation get in the way of judgement.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Mon Jul 26th, 2010 at 04:13:10 PM EST

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

"the sort of war that makes a mockery of pretty much every ideal we pretend to hold dear"

The ordinary sort of war, in other words.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Tue Jul 27th, 2010 at 02:58:20 PM EST

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 0)

Well...there is no good war.
West culture tends to classified everything as "good" and "bad". And as there are good guys and bad guys in their mind there is a "good war" too. That's always war west is fighting (hah).
West is preaching "peace" where ever some inconvenient (for west) war starts. But when it comes to their wars peace somehow is not an option.
In Afghanistan and Iraq (both "good" wars in westerner's minds) they are going to lose of course. But they calculated defeat in advance. It's all about math (money).
Who cares for lives of both solders and people on the ground?

by vbo on Tue Jul 27th, 2010 at 10:24:39 PM EST

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

I don't think that anything you wrote is specific to the West. People who start wars or join as soldiers often convince themselves that they are good guys against bad guys. (For example, Bosnian Serbs going to fight Moslems.)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Wed Jul 28th, 2010 at 02:32:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Clap harder, dammit! (none / 1)

Actually you are right!
All OUR wars are "good" at least when it comes to media.
And there is always about half of the nation who are not convinced and are against the war. Even historical distance does not make a change. I can't believe for example that people here still celebrate Vietnam War as a right war and veterans are proud of it.
I suppose it's similar everywhere when it comes to our wars. I remember history classes when I was young and how we learned that Serbs always fought just wars and always on the right side when it comes to world wars. Hah
Even when it comes to great empires (they were great because they occupied foreign territory) we all find a way to be proud of them if they are our empires, ha-ha.
So in a way I was wrong. What bothers me in this present time is how west finds all the stupid excuses to justify Afghan and Iraq war. People are not stupid or uninformed (this is a time of information revolution) and they realize that war is about money (always has been) but they agree to justify it because of "our interest". Thing is that when it comes to western interest then it's just but when it comes to anybody else interest it's unjust in mind of westerners. That bothers me. For example war in Georgia. It is widely seen as unjust war and Russia is occupier in their minds. But it is obvious that Russia has it interests too and Georgia is next door with a lot of Russian population there. It's still unjust in the eyes of west. Interestingly when American's and NATO occupied Middle East (so far away from home) somehow they found million reasons to justify it.
It's simply wrong.
But it's human nature I suppose...

by vbo on Wed Jul 28th, 2010 at 07:25:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Clap harder, dammit! | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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