What wars do you support?

[Walt Starr]

Two recent conflicts. Where do you stand?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. There was a woman's organization that spousette and I donated to

they had a gory website showing just how women were treated by the Taliban.

yeah, sure cultural differences. . . . my ass.

Shooting them in the head? in a public court because they were not following their mysogenistic law?
Starvation, beatings, arrests without knowing why. Yes, I fully supported the invasion to kick out the Taliban.

Unfortunately, the Bush-lite screwed that up, too.

[sui generis]

2. afghanistan only BUT

We weren't ready even for that.

Our "western" notions of political propriety do not match up with the social reality of feudal tribalism, and we're still in denial.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

10. Do the women still wear burqua?

That's not a snide question; I really don't know.

[sui generis]

12. I believe that it's now "optional"

for devout women to prove their devotion to their male kinfolk and husbands by wearing the burqa; meaning that women are no longer whipped in public for not demonstrating their devotion.

Nonetheless, some kind of head cover in public and "modest" dress for women are still required.

[porphyrian]

3. I supported Afghanistan, not Iraq...

...but I would further say that I supported Afghanistan because we were going after bin Laden, the terrorist behind 9/11. Bush pulling our troops out of Afghanistan to go to war in Iraq before accomplishing this, and knowing that bin Laden was likely in Pakistan, not Iraq, is reprehensible. Flip-flopping on the subject and saying that bin Laden really wasn't an important target is unacceptable. Intentionally lying about the threat Iraq posed to convince Congress to give the President power to go to war in Iraq is treason.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. I would support a UN-US effort in Darfur, Zimbabwe and a few other places

but only after ALL OTHER OPTIONS WERE GONE.

Darfur - 10,000s of deaths. 40,000 rapes over the past 4 years. Starvation, burning of homes and crops. This is genocide.

[Adelante]

5. Oh, yeah, right away

All other options long gone in Darfur.

[porphyrian]

6. Me, too. Sadly, the media barely mentions these.

I suppose who wins the next American Idol is more important.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. and missing blonds from coke, pot and rum filled island resorts

It may be that all other options are gone.

[prolesunited]

11. I think the only way that would happen

is they suddenly discover huge oil reserves under their feet.

I bring up the facts of this much worse situation every time someone says we went into Iraq to liberate the people from a brutal, oppressive regime. Iraq was a cake walk compared to what has been going on in Darfur.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. I supported the war in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda was there

and training terrorists there with the full knowledge of the government in power, i.e. the Taliban. I believe Bush was correct in asserting that the Taliban must cooperate with the U.S. in capturing Bin Laden or be counted with the terrorists. We also had the full support of our allies and the U.N. for the war in Afghanistan.

When Bush pulled our troops out of Afghanistan for his invasion of Iraq, he not only allowed Al Qaeda the chance the re-form, he squandered the good will of our allies and weakened our position in the world. In short, he blew it!

[No Exit]

9. I used to support the Afghan war (I never supported the Iraq war), but

now I don't support the Afghan war.

It has become abundantly clear to me that BOTH actions are all about laying oil pipelines--and not about "terrorism". Michael Moore is NOT the only source who tells us the Afghan war (like the Iraq war) was to promote/protect oil interests.

[bloom]

13. Afghanistan's oil pipeline has been in the works for awhile...

The new Great Game

Monday October 20, 2003

"The main spoils in today's Great Game are Caspian oil and gas. On its shores, and at the bottom of the Caspian Sea, lie the world's biggest untapped fossil fuel resources. Estimates range from 110 to 243bn barrels of crude, worth up to $4 trillion. According to the US department of energy, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone could sit on more than 130bn barrels, more than three times the US's reserves. Oil giants such as ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP have already invested more than $30bn in new production facilities.

"I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian," said Dick Cheney in a speech to oil industrialists in 1998. In May 2001, the US vice-president recommended in the national energy policy report that "the president makes energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy", singling out the Caspian basin as a "rapidly growing new area of supply".

...By contrast, Washington champions two pipelines that would circumvent both Russia and Iran. One would run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. Construction has already begun for a $3.8bn pipeline from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, via neighbouring Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. BP, its main operator, has invested billions in oil-rich Azerbaijan, and can count on support from the Bush administration, which recently stationed about 500 elite troops in war-torn Georgia.

Although the US state department acknowledges that Uzbek security forces use "torture as a routine investigation technique", Washington last year gave the Karimov regime $500m in aid and rent payments for the US air base in Chanabad. The state department also quietly removed Uzbekistan from its annual list of countries where freedom of religion is under threat."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,1066600,00.html

[frylock]

16. the us was going to go into afghanistan whether 911 happened or not..

good find.

[No Exit]

19. Thanks for the info! Just as Gen. Smedley Butler could say

he'd fought valiantly for United Fruit Company, the Afghan veterans can say they've fought valiantly for Unocal.

I wish to God I, or any of them, could have seen the truth about it before it began. I don't blame the soldiers. I blame the bastards who sent them.

[abluelady]

14. I Feel the Same Way

I don't think the way we are waging this "war" is achieving anything positive. I'm not sure how to beat terror but I don't believe attacking a country is it.

[Jara sang]

15. I support the war against wars.

[PerpetualWinter]

17. I support Afghanistan and was wrong about Iraq...

I supported going to Iraq and have since come to the conclusion I was wrong. However, pulling the troops at this point is lunacy and would only further destablize the region.

[drdtroit]

18. I don't support any kind of elective war!

If one was to support that kind of philosophy than the obvious target after 911 would have been Saudi Arabia (anybody remember where the majority of the "alleged" hijackers were from???). It's too bad the majority of Americans can't see through these thinly veiled "corporate takeovers" as being nothing but a cover for the BFEE's criminal activities.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

20. I admire your position, but respectfully disagree

If we had acted earlier (and I am still angry about this) the Hutu-Tutsi massacres would not have been as bloody, deadly or vile. Yes, that happened on Bill Clinton's watch, and it was the worst non-decision he made in office.

If we had worked on Angola, instead of secretly supporting one, then the other side, a civil war decades old would have stopped.

If we act now in Darfur, we can still save hundreds of thousands.
If we act now in Zimbabwe, millions can be saved from Mugabe's death march and razing of cities and shanty-towns.

[Touchdown]

21. The culture war. I support gays having sex on street corners

and force, by law (at gunpoint if necessary), all Christians to cheer them on, and get their children to sign selective service gay cards so we can recruit them into our lifestyle. So there!

[ENomine]

22. I used to.

Afghanistan... until we totally crapped it up. There was a fascinating piece in the... god, was it the New Yorker?... about U.S. covert operations in Afghanistan and Indonesia, part of a book actually, about how through public works and small, dedicated teams of U.S. operatives; opinion in places generally hostile to the U.S. can be turned in a heartbeat. They build wells, build schools, provide safety; thus destroying the terrorist/guerilla powerbase in the region. Then of course we have to go an fark everything that those teams did by moving them out, moving in the Indonesian army (one even more corrupt and incompetent than our own), and letting everything go to hell again.