Out of Afghanistan

Day Seven. I gotta indulge in a national issue before I go into strategy. Besides, we need to be holding Florida’s Congress members and candidates accountable on this, which we aren’t doing. We need to be questioning all our candidates about this, even for the legislature, because some of them will move up to Congress from there. I will no longer support candidates whose worldview perpetuates the worldwide mess we are in. Iraq isn’t the only problem. Alan made an incisive comment on one of my posts. He said Liberals start wars. I could agree, with qualifications. And I’d postulate that at least in theory, Progressives don’t, or at least shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

What set me off this morning were these paragraphs buried in a McClatchy News Service story: “Tribal insurgents allied with the Taliban and al Qaeda have created a virtually independent Islamic state in much of Pakistan’s tribal belt and repulsed repeated U.S.-supported drives by the Pakistani army to bring the region under control (my italics). At the same time, the Taliban have mounted a ferocious return in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters have taken de facto control of one rural district after the next, moving from their southern heartland toward the Afghan capital. Allied drug lords have produced record crops of opium poppy, fueling corruption and violence. And civilian casualities from the U.S. airstrikes, and anger over Iraq and U.S. support for Israel, have dramatically boosted anti-Americanism and opposition to the government in Kabul. Given the insecurity, violence and anti-U.S. anger — even among moderates – on both sides of the border …..”

I reject the Liberals’ argument that we had to invade and occupy Afghanistan so that Liberals can look strong on defense and as a cover to oppose Iraq. What the F right does the U.S. have occupying foreign countries? And what the F right does the U.S. have bringing the Islamic region in Pakistan “under control”? It’s not our F ing business to be dictating to the world that they can’t have Islamic governments. Let Pakistan deal with its own affairs. If we stopped arming the Afghanistan “government” and the Pakistani military dictatorship, etc., my Secretary of State could reach a nice deal with the Taliban and al Qaeda: we leave you alone, you leave us alone. That’s how you’re strong on defense, Liberals.

911

Day Nine. This is going to be tough for you to read. I apologize, but it’s a tough day. I had hoped this post would come toward the end of the 100 Days, after you understood me more.

You have a choice to make during your four minutes of silence today, four minutes, or at least to start making if it requires you to change course. You have to decide what kind of world you want to live in the next 50 years, that you want your children and grandchildren to live in. You can continue the bogus “war on terror”. You can continue to work for, contribute to and vote for politicians who will perpetuate U.S. military aid and support of authoritarian anti-Islamic regimes across this planet. That is why Al Qaeda attacked you six years ago today and why they will continue to try to attack you. Here. You can continue to pour billions and billions of your tax dollars into your country’s killing Al Qaeda and the dozens of other Islamic militant political movements who are forced to arms by the dictatorships that your country props up. You can watch America continue to slip into more and more of a police state. I learned just this morning that Bush is now turning the spy satellites onto our homeland. Watching you. You can live in more and more fear and watch this country driven farther and farther to the right each time an attack evades the police state security apparatus, of which YOU are a suspect.

Several years ago I had the honor to meet Sen. Ted Kennedy at a meeting of gay rights activists. F gay rights. I asked him why Al Qaeda tried to destroy his capitol and kill him. He said he didn’t know. Or was it he wouldn’t tell? He said we need to investigate it, called for an investigation. I was shocked. You tell me what’s going on. I can, but that’s for another post.

Bruce Hoffman knows. Here’s an amazing paragraph buried in this morning’s paper. You’ll be amazed what truths and insights pop out of the depths of stories written by people who lack the education, or values, or is it intelligence?, to see wholistically and get their thesis right. This one is from an op-ed piece by Hoffman, professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy Combating Terrorism Center.

“…. Al Zawahari is the superior strategist. It was he who, more than a decade ago, defined al Qaeda’s strategy in terms of “far” and “near” enemies. The United States is the “far enemy” whose defeat, he argued, was an essential prerequisite to the elimination of the “near enemy” — the corrupt and authoritarian anti-Islamic regimes in the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia that could not remain in power without U.S. support. All Zawahri’s strategic vision set off the chain of events that led to 9/11.”

So that’s one choice. Or you can work to stop the war on the militant Islamic movements, demand that your party and your candidates and the media and the right wingers stop it. Just stop it. It’s none of my or your business what kind of governments these countries have, regardless of our personal preferences on all sorts of different governments. Worry about your own.

Stop it. And in time …. so much damage has already been done it will take years and years to reverse this, the Islamists will forget about us, you, they will do what they will do in their own countries and have only ‘near enemies’. And if they do come to power here and there, you will no longer be their enemy. You can deal with them the same way we deal with China, or Pakistan, or Egypt (okay, maybe not military aid) or every other country whose government we don’t like.

Peace out.

America's 911 Black Hole

On Tuesday I posted about the refusal of this society to acknowledge the reasons why we were attacked on 911, which has lead you to “go along with” the bogus War on Terror, if not downright cheer it on (and thereby contribute to the public conflation of Iraq and 911). Well, here’s a shocking item from this morning’s wire services: “The Defense Department has censored an audiotape of the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks speaking at a military hearing — cutting out Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s explanation for why Islamic militants waged jihad against the United States. After months of debate (my italics) by several federal agencies, the department released the tape Thursday. Cut from it were 10 minutes of the more than 40-minute closed court session at Guantanamo Bay to determine whether Mohammed should be declared an “enemy combatant” ….. Officials from the CIA, FBI, State Department and others listened to the tape and feared it could be copied and edited by other militants for use as propaganda, officials said. “It was determined that the release of this portion of the spoken words of Khalid Sheik Mohammed would enable enemies of the United States to use it in a way to recruit or encourage future terrorists or terrorists activities,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Note how release of the ten minutes would also inject critical information into the public policy debate and erode the rationale for the War on Terror. This is also being done to propagandize the American public, to continue YOUR brainwashing by withholding critical facts. I am trying to track down the transcript of the ten minutes, if it is even public. If you can get a hold of it first, post it and send it and your link to me so I can post it here.

I am hereby establishing The Florida Anti-Terror Project (provisional name) to work to stop the phoney War on Terror in Florida. We will pull together the relevant research, meet with editorial boards, hold meetings with our Congressional delegation, you know the bit. We need to inject this overall issue into the Florida Primary. If you get a chance, you need to ask the presidential candidates a very simple question: “Why did Al Qaeda attack us on 911?” You’ll get bullshit (except from Kucinich), but we can examine the nuances, the subtext of their responses for clues on their approach to terror.

I’ll serve as coordinator for now. If this is an issue that you feel strongly about, comment or email me. I’ll be establishing the project site shortly. Stay tuned. Day 12. Things are starting to congeal here.