Charlie Rose

blank  08/02/2012 04:04 PM Report

okay nice day to be outside moving forward i psych myself out in my head (do not pay attention i have to get out of this trap of posting on this show - or do it in a different way)

i'll figure it out though

EthicalHumanist  08/02/2012 02:42 PM Report

The main problem is Saudi Arabia, which owns the corrupt and violent ruling class of Pakistan.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  08/02/2012 02:23 AM Report

Stan, be it Afghani or Paki.

Sounds like the two run together without much of a border.

Let's call our mates (after the Olympics of course) and have them do another partition.

This time Afghani for narcoterrorists and Paki for law and order.

Then Afghani will be a gift for our military-industrial complex sans troops. We can move Guantánamo there too.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  08/02/2012 02:11 AM Report

A million dollars per soldier per year (or half a million dollars a year like the Pentagon claims):

Just who is serving who?

Drone baby drone.

REMant  08/01/2012 11:30 AM Report

Karzai will be forced out the minute he loses active US support and most likely a civil war ensue, regardless of the Taliban. The trajectory is almost identical to Vietnam. I think it's fairly clear that no one in the admin, nor probably in the military, believed this would be the case. But even the Marine Corps' attempt to avoid combat appears the same, as the greater Helmond story illustrates. (And this, if I recall correctly, is one place where he gets it wrong. The bickering between Marines and Army stems from the contest between the Navy's and MacArthur's Pacific war strategies. The Marines have their own brass to thank for their losses.) The irony of the Helmond irrigation project is that it left the land good only for poppy cultivation.

His book, two excerpts of which appeared in The Post in June, is reminiscent of Frances Fitzgerald's attempt to acquaint the American public with Vietnam's actually quite similar history and culture. The Post's Al Kamen (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/afghanistan-the-troubled-us-effort/2012/07/23/g JQA3GiW4W_blog.html) cites an analogous example of perversity from the book: "...11 Bolivian engineers were brought in to show how a U.S.-backed program there to build cobblestone roads could be repeated in Afghanistan. A short demonstration stretch was built. But the Afghans objected. They wanted gravel and asphalt. The cobblestones, they claimed, hurt their camels' hooves." Kamen says it should be required reading for AID officials, etc., who might also IMHO study the occupation of Japan, and, obviously, the Vietnam effort.

What he says about troop rotation recalls Vietnam as well, and hubris can be the only explanation for spending $1 million per soldier per year, as it was with the moon race and the rest of Democratic and neocon meglomania.

Little America's can also be found in Saudi Arabia, of course, as well as many a post-war American suburb. One shouldn't get the idea that it is peculiarly American.