Matthew Hoh, on PBS Newshour, discussing Afghanistan - is my new hero.

[NRaleighLiberal]

Listen to his interview with Judy Woodruff. He speaks on in warmongering terms, nor in the language of being stuck in the quagmire. He left his position because he sees Afghanistan for what it is. An endless quagmire that we can't fix.

It is time to leave.

I hope that Obama and all Senators and Representatives (well, at least those that are sane - the Dems) watch this or find a way to speak to Matthew.

However...if I were Matthew, I would watch my back. I am sure the powers that be are not thrilled with him.

[montanacowboy]

1. Yes, I heard him on the evening drive

he makes so much sense it hurts

this guy sees it for what it is and articulates it extremely well

[bullwinkle428]

2. He was interviewed on NPR as well - talk about speaking

truth to power. Expressed in brilliantly clear terms why this cannot possibly end well, no matter what we attempt to do there.

"A former Marine captain who became the first foreign service official to publicly resign in protest over the war in Afghanistan says staying in the country is not in America's interest.

"The losses of our soldiers do not merit anything that comes in line with our strategic interests or values," Matthew Hoh, who signed on as a foreign service official in Afghanistan after fighting in Iraq, tells NPR's Melissa Block.

Hoh resigned last month after spending five working months in Afghanistan. In his resignation letter, he said he had "lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purpose of the United States' presence in Afghanistan.""

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114287485

[kenny blankenship]

3. But that's the thing - we're not in Afghanistan to "FIX" it.

In fact if we want to stick around there we will ally ourselves -just you wait and see!- with the most backwards, vicious, corrupt elements (that's plural because they are varied and numerous) of the Afghan "nation". Not that anything of the kind actually exists but heuristically let's just call it a nation for now.

We will lie down with the most brutal of the warlords. Won't be the first time, either.

We will pal around with the skag merchants. Yes, we will and already do.

We will pal around with the woman abusers. We already do and if we want to stay we will buddy up with them even more. Keep watching - you'll see.

We will pay and absolve of any crime the very elements we first invaded Afghanistan to destroy 8 years ago, because they are part of the landscape and we do not wish to leave the scene. Afghanistan is the doormat on China's western porch, and from Afghanistan we can project power and influence into all the Central Asian republics which used to figure in the Soviet Union's gas rich Islamic southern tier. After the fall of the USSR we moved into all the 'Stans to spread our commercial influence and win contracts for oil and gas exploration. Russia fumed from its sickbed and plotted its return to preeminence in the region - which is after all its region. At that time, China was not yet risen as a global power. We made hay while the Sun was shining. For ten years we stole a march on both Russia and China. And after the pooch screwing of 9/11, the nation state Afghanistan is ours, ALL OURS. We can put in a million troops if we want to. WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT. Elsewhere in Central Asia we have to ask for basing rights and negotiate troop levels and pay rent. In Afghanistan, no one can say "Boo." We just have to learn to share it with the criminals who live there.

We will do all that and more because since we wish to stay on in Afghanistan we must restrain our prudishness and focus on ruffling as few local feathers as possible. And we will pay our way into acceptance there with bakshish doled into all the blood soaked hands that reach out for it. That will be tribute paid to THE WORST OF THE WORST of the "Afghan" nation. That will be paid to the very bastards that make the ordinary Afghan weep in terror. And we will hug these scum close to us, and give them everything that they delight in: Weapons, drug money, life and death power over peasants, women's bodies for slaves, every inducement we would call barbaric and illegal in our own country. We will do this not to fix Afghanistan but simply to stay there, indefinitely and to keep it fucked up as it ever has been in the past, which is about as fucked over as any country has ever been fucked in the history of this sick world.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Very well put.