http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2822456Truth2Tell (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 07:47 PM
Original message
Progressives: Iraq war bad, Afghan war good. Really?
Advertisements [?]Edited on Tue Feb-05-08 07:47 PM by Truth2Tell
America's Gulag and the Good War
Strange Fruit
By CHRIS FLOYD
The long-running "progressive" stance on America's 21st century imperial adventures can be reduced to this simple dichotomy: Afghan war good, Iraq war bad. And for all progressives who want to be regarded as "serious," the Iraq war is bad because it has distracted us from the real war, the good war, in Afghanistan. This theme has been sounded over and over by the "progressive" candidates throughout the presidential campaign. It is the opinion of a sizable majority of the U.S. population, which has clearly repudiated the Iraq war but still supports the Afghan war.
-snip
Gall and Worthington tell the story of Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, an Afghan war hero who had fought against the Soviets, brazenly defied the Taliban--and died in the American concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. After the American invasion replaced the Taliban with another set of vicious warlords, druglords and radical sectarians, Hekmati fell afoul of the new Bush-installed regime. In 2003, he accused the governor of Helmland province, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, of widespread corruption--and of shielding senior Taliban members. Suddenly, Hekmati found himself accused of being a Taliban leader and high-level al Qaeda official--absurd charges, vehemently denied by all who knew him, including senior officials in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
But still Hekmati was seized by American forcesacting as muscle to protect the notorious Helmland druglord--and shipped off to the American concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. There he rotted for five years, hauled up occasionally for kangaroo "tribunals" which refused to contact the many officials in the American-backed Afghan government who would have vouched for his innocence--even when these same officials were actively seeking out top Bush administration figures to plead Hekmati's case.
But like so many people, Hekmati's friends misunderstood the purpose of the Guantanamo concentration camp. It has nothing at all to do with "fighting terrorism," in Afghanistan or anywhere else. It has nothing to do with prosecuting the "good war" in Afghanistan and bringing peace and freedom to that ravaged land. The Guantanamo concentration camp--like the Afghan war itself--is first and foremost a display of domination. It is the precise equivalent of a vicious ape beating his chest and baring his teeth to assert his sway over the group. The fate of any one individual, however innocent, caught up in the Terror War gulag--or killed in the Terror War's military operations--does not matter in the least. They are merely means to an end--and the end is dominance, "full spectrum dominance" of world affairs. Our leading apes make no secret of this. A "unipolar world" under the hegemony of the United States has been the openly proclaimed goal of a broad swath of the bipartisan foreign establishment for many years -- especially the particularly nasty faction that has coalesced around the illegitimate presidency of George W. Bush.
More at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02052008.html
NNN0LHI (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 07:51 PM
Response to Original message
1. The Afghans we are killing now were little kids in 2001 when this began 6 years ago
So were the occupying forces we are sending there to kill them.
This makes little sense.
Don
LakeSamish706 (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. And not only that, when you look at 911, An outed CIA agent, the lies that...
were used to take us into Iraq... This total war on terror is a pile of Bullshit with many people loosing there lives at the hands of this corrupt Administration.
Yeah nothing happened at thw WTC before 9/11.......or Kobar....or USS Cole...or the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya
ixion (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 07:59 PM
Response to Original message
3. This progressive was ardently opposed to BOTH invasions
so that's a bit of a straw man, IMO.
Flinging poo
Truth2Tell (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 08:03 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. I've seen a LOT of DUers
defend the war in Afghanistan. And all the so-called Progressive Presidential candidates still support it, and all of the Democratic Congressional leadership. All of these folks claim to be Progressive. Go figure.
Poo flinging primitive idjits.............the lot of ya
scarletwoman (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 08:09 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Yes, but if you had been here on DU back in the fall of 2001, you would have found
yourself among an extremely small minority who were arguing against the attack on Afghanistan. It's not a straw man at all. In all the years since, you can find post after post of DUers proclaiming that they were against the invasion of Iraq, but were FOR the war on Afghanistan -- the "good" war, the "right" war.
Chris Floyd is exactly right. The great majority of "liberals/progressives" in the U.S. were all for going into Afghanistan.
See this recent thread: Fall back, men, Afghanistan is a nasty war we can never win
sw
Ahh hell the poo is being flung between em
aquart (1000+ posts) Tue Feb-05-08 08:09 PM
Response to Original message
5. Both were and continue to be incredibly stupid ideas.
Unfortunately, we were too dumb to KEEP them as mere ideas.
So, enjoying Georgie's oil wars? How's all that cheap gas?
You are just a DAMN IDJIT
