Twitter Training

A number of Americans have been killed in that war. It is one of the longest lasting wars that the US has been engaged in. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent.

Today Gen Petraeus took command — so the war is in the news. The large news organizations have heard of it.

But here on this 4th of July —- silence about that war. Not a single person has any comment, or question.

Is it so obvious to everybody that the war is a meritorious cause, that has made progress since nine years ago, that Karzai is a man of great righteousness, and if he wants to join the Taliban, as he says he does, that is his right?

Is it perfectly plain that the taxpayer is getting their money’s worth and that the war is not being fought entirely for the benefit of the big defense contractors?

Here’s what’s true — Petraeus said today that our purpose in Afghanistan is to prevent having that area be used as a sanctuary for terrorist training camps and planning attacks on the USA and other free nations.

OK, could terrorist training camps be visible from overhead viewing. If we can read the date on a dime, we can probably see a terrorist training camp, right? A camp is bigger than the date on a dime.

If we can find a camp where training is being done — isn’t there such a thing as missiles? Couldn’t we put fire and steel on the camp with missiles, or predators, or cruise missiles, or tomahawks, or ICBM’s or SLBM’s. I’ve seen pictures on TV of missiles, so I know there are such things. So why do we need to deploy troops on the ground in Afghanistan? What is our purpose? Is it to protect the local population from each other? Has any war ever been fought by any nation for such a purpose or is this the first one? Nation A goes to nation B 12,000 miles away, and fights a ground war to protect the local population from each other. Ever happen before? No? I wonder why not? Too crazy? Yeh, maybe.

Terrorist planning by the way is mostly done in apartments in Germany, not in caves in Afghanistan. You want a place where the lights go on when you flick the switch, and where you can order our for Pizza (but not with ham). Al Qaeda is poor, but not so poor that they can’t afford apartments in Germany, or other places. My point is that whether they are in caves or not in caves, there’s no reason to imagine that they would choose to do their planning in a place with such inadequate infrastructure as Afghanistan. Just getting food and water to them would attract much more attention in Afghanistan than in Hamburg.

So, this is a senseless war, with no valid purpose apart from income for the Big Contractors, who then send the envelopes to Capitol Hill. But it’s a war where 1% of the American people are being made to bear 100% of the dying costs and injury costs. So 99% of the People don’t have a stake, and don’t feel any interest in it as evidenced by this 4th of July on Yahoo where this is the only post that talks about it.

There’s been a generational change in USA. New values are in the hearts of the ipad/twitter people, who we used to call teeny boppers. Well, they are not teeny anymore, but they didn’t grow up to hold the same values that the old hippies did. On a day like today, with a war like Afghanistan going on, we would have a million people marching in Washington DC. We would peacefully and non-violently read out the names of the war dead. We would make political life hard for the government. They would have some policy explaining to do.

Now, who cares?
It’s surely not about the "blame game" in Washington DC, which party to blame, or which politician. We started in Afghanistan under Clinton who I’m sure you will recall fired four Tomohawks from an Aegis class Guided missile cruiser. These air breathers are easily visible, and they had to fly over several hundred miles of Pakistan (supposedly our allies), and people over there do have cellphones, so how long does it take Ali and Baba to scramble a few hundred yards and not be there when the missiles explode? Let’s say 5 minutes. And how long did they have of warning? About 30 minutes. Clinton never served, so he had absolutely no clue about the significance of surprize in winning military engagements. Or, maybe he really just didn’t want to hurt anybody. The gesture was symbolic not substantive.

Anyhow, blame is not where it’s at. The policy today is either correct and intelligent or incorrect and dumb. If dumb, then any person from any political party can gain credit by ending it

Rather interesting remarks Navy!. From the standpoint of the significance of Boots on
the ground. I have to agree with you. Training camps are going to be seen by eye in
the sky, and Ground Operatives. So really no need for troops on the ground. Predator
drones and AWAX aircraft could be far more deadly and much more significant.

But you know as well as I do. Why we are there. You know and I know that it has nothing
to do with freeing Afghanistan from theTaliban or any such Bullshit.

Approximately three trillion dollars worth of raw minerals. Taking possession of that
through a puppet government like Karzi would be the game as it is now being played.

This has all the earmarks of Viet Nam. and the Shell Geophysical Shoot done in 1957 in
the Gulf of Tonkin. We severly under estimated the resolve of the Ho Chi Minh. And
we got bogged down in our thirst for someone else’s oil. When the price became to high
in American life, Nixon pulled us Out.

Who will be the Nixon of this Era,