The Courage to Leave (Bob Herbert on Afghanistan)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

There is no good news coming out of the depressing and endless war in Afghanistan. There once was merit to our incursion there, but that was long ago. Now we’re just going through the tragic motions, flailing at this and that, with no real strategy or decent end in sight.


The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza. BP, as we’ve been told repeatedly recently, is one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the wartime U.S. military. ...

What’s happening in Afghanistan is not only tragic, it’s embarrassing. The American troops will fight, but the Afghan troops who are supposed to be their allies are a lost cause. The government of President Hamid Karzai is breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent — and widely unpopular to boot. And now, as The Times’s Dexter Filkins is reporting, the erratic Mr. Karzai seems to be giving up hope that the U.S. can prevail in the war and is making nice with the Taliban.

There is no overall game plan, no real strategy or coherent goals, to guide the fighting of U.S. forces. It’s just a mind-numbing, soul-chilling, body-destroying slog, month after month, year after pointless year. The 18-year-olds fighting (and, increasingly, dying) in Afghanistan now were just 9 or 10 when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in 2001...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1276351291-DsS05x1wLLYYqlMIXT5EWg
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OK, now comes a real interesting part. Look at the online comments and arrange them in the order of Readers' Recommendations:

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html?sort=recommended

"Far left" positions have received overwhelmingly positive responses, with the first one, which basically outlines policies espoused by Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson, is 100 "yeses" ahead of the next one, which is also farther left than the conventional corporate Democrats' conventional "wisdom."
And before the DLCers start stammering about how the New York Times is a "left-wing" publication, well, actually no, it's mostly a rich yuppie publication that passes for "left" in this country, and you will see conservative positions, although in the minority, expressed, too, depending on the topic.

I guess my point is that the Tea Party and their corporate enablers get all the publicity in American media, while the contingent that is not even as far left as the Tea Partiers are far right, is ignored completely, except on the Internet and on the few cable access stations that run Democracy Now.

[femrap]

1. But if we stopped the war,

wouldn't the Defense Contractors have to lay off employees? War is the only industry that is 'working.' That's all the U.S. knows how to do: export death and destruction....oh and pron.

I'm disgusted.

WASF.

[1776Forever]

2. Wow - This paragraph says it all to me .........

"The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza."

......

Can anyone deny that? It is God honest truth! Thank you Bob Herbert for your courage to tell it like it is!

:yourock:

:kick:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. He has been on the money for so long--if any deserves a Pulitzer Prize,

it's him.

[1776Forever]

4. I could not agree more! I think he is one of a few that should be nominated this time! n/t

[MissDeeds]

6. That paragraph struck me too

I am so disgusted with the way this country has been run - or is that 'ruined'?

[MisterP]

5. we need a Progressive Movement that brings all the outrageous stories on DU to the people

and which doesn't back down, and which keeps the pressure up on eternal compromisers and veal-pen residents; instead of adopting "only a few" Teabag and conservative ideas and positions ("just to get them to vote for us"), it will come out swinging, and EXPLAIN to them why taxes on the rich should be higher, why living in pants-soiling fear within a home armor isn't cool, why we can't go on pretending like it's 1957 ecologically, why we shouldn't invade other people, why we should care about non-Americans dying

its messaging will be strong: "Do you want the troops home? Do you not want the banks rewarded for throwing people onto the street?"

it will never be satisfied with half measures or complacent with sugar pills (the reverse of "poison pills") and thrown bones, and vocally point it out

FDL, Mother Jones, Harper's, McClatchy, academics (including undergraduates), scientists and other muckrakers can form the Movement's informational core