Saturday, July 10, 2010

General Casey Wants To Give Afghanistan What We Don't Have In America, And He Wants Us To Waste Another Decade Giving It To Them

Speaking at the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival Friday, Army Chief Of Staff Gen. George Casey says we may be fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq another ten years. Whose idea is that? Certainly not mine, but I'm not invested in the military-industrial complex, so I won't be making a dime by bleeding the country dry.
But what's more upsetting are the objectives of the military in the region.
1.)You are only going to succeed when the people perceive there is a government represented by their interests-So why should the people of Afghanistan have what we don't? My interests don't include making the rich people richer, mine include something like providing decent health care for every American,or that those struggling through tough economic times not of their creation can keep their homes and feed their families. These were both wars of choice, only I didn't choose them.
2.)when there is an economy that can give them a job to support their families-Wait a minute-we had that here! I remember it well. Then our corporate idiocracy said, you know what, if we outsource your jobs to another country that doesn't have organized labor, we'll make out-we mean, you'll be able to buy more consumer goods because they won't cost as much. And the television watchers all said "Yup, yup, yup, more stuff for me! I like the sound of that~!"
3.)when there are educational systems that can educate their family-Do you mean like we used to have? Nowadays, many right wing candidates are calling for the abolition of the department of education. Why? Because the Official Party of 'NO!' said that education is bad because they won't let your myths be taught to other people's children, science is bad because it disproves their faith, and the only thing children should be reading is our big book of approved fables.
4.)States, non-states and individual actors who are increasingly willing to use violence-You mean, like flying unmanned drones into civilian areas, casually referring to civilian deaths as collateral damage, and bombing areas where we think there may be people we want to kill? Doesn't anybody in charge have at least one iota of common sense to realize that maybe the reason that they are shooting at us is because we started shooting at them first?
Of course, the general, who is set to retire in nine months , was followed by a Pentagon spin doctor, who stated:"General Casey was speaking of the types of conflict we will be fighting for a decade or so. He did not, nor did he intend to, imply that we would be fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan for 10 more years."
What he really meant to say was "We'll be fighting in Iran as well. That could take some time."

3 comments:

Tom Harper said...

We may have to move to Iraq or Afghanistan if we want quality education and a functioning job market.

Conservatives have that same schizo outlook with labor unions. When Poland's labor movement was gaining ground in the early '80s, American GOPers thought that was just great. "Look, democracy is blooming in Eastern Europe!" Then these same people would read about a labor dispute in the U.S. and go "those F#$%!#&! commie labor unions!"

Lew Scannon said...

Considering they couldn't give $33 billion to the war effort fast enough, while simultaneously holding back unemployment benefit extensions until after the election for Americans prove that their loyalties don't lie with the American worker.

libhom said...

Would Orwell say that Afghanistan is the new Oceania?