All of them are scumbags who believe women are property; both the heroin dealers and the Taliban are fucked up douchebags and I think we should pull out and leave them to their douchebaggery.  The Afghans hate us and want us gone.  It's their country and just as I don't want them here imposing their asshole customs on our society, I don't think we have any business dragging them into the 21st century.  They aren't worth one American soldier's life.  The American Empire intends to send more and more of our young people into these asshole conflicts that have nothing to do with protecting our own country.  This is part of why "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has to be eliminated, because a substantial number of young men would have no problem with claiming to be gay in order to avoid being killed or maimed in these conflicts that have nothing to do with maintaining the security of our own country.

Last edited by fnord (2010-06-13 04:37:11)

As I recall, we didn't go to Afghanistan to rehabilitate that fucked up society.  We went to retaliate against and kill the Taliban, who were harboring Bin Laden and the other masterminds of 9/11.  Attempting to bring these people into the present seems like a lost cause and not worth the lives of American and Coalition soldiers.

Besides the oil line that we wanted to put in there, there is indeed the mineral wealth, which OMG, nobody knew anything about!

Disaster Capitalism indeed.

choad wrote:

From the front page of this morning's NYT.

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

Disregard my previous post.  This country is now obviously worth fighting for.

For many years, even after the wars with Russia and the U.S. began, I bought the most beautiful tourmalines and lapiz lazuli from a stone dealer from Afghanistan. He always had great prices. He suddenly disappeared a couple of years ago. Makes me wonder what happened to him.

I'm betting that the Soviets knew they had all that nickel, they just weren't telling. Russia has very little copper, nickel or lead within their natural borders, one of the reasons that they were so active in Africa and central Asia.

Estimates have tripled to 3 Trillion. The first contracts are being sold this summer. And the first kickbacks to individual government heads seem to start in the $20 million range. With that kind of money flowing for personal bribes the war there will never end.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … index_xml+(washingtonpost.com+-+World)

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2010-06-17 23:32:03)

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Estimates have tripled to 3 Trillion.

Good luck actually making anything close to that.

When I look at what Arabs accomplished in science (algebra, astronomy) and engineering (the Qanat for example), I wonder if perhaps total islamic religious fanatics aren't responsible for the degradation of their culture, and worry what the Christian Right will do to the USA.

fnord wrote:

The Christian Right is nothing more than the final death struggle of Literalist Protestantism, and it will be gone within the next few decades as most of its adherents are elderly and/or uneducated

Proposition 8, dude.

I'd be there for you as they haul you and your companion off to the auto da fe, but you can't be racist and expect civil equality at the same time.