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."

You Cried Wolf Once Too Often

I've been ho-humming the recent swine flu outbreak (or, as some people would prefer it to be called, the "Mexican" Flu) because I've heard this before. Remember the Avian Flu that was to going to kill millions of people? How about SARS? How about that Global War on Terror? Global warming Climate change? Gay marriages?
What these all are connected by is someone made money from it. Dick Cheney, and a host of Republican donors (i.e., Erik Prince) benefited from the war in Iraq, I mean, the Global war on terrorism, er, make that the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Donald Rumsfeld, as the owner of the intellectual property for Tamiflu, stands to make as much from the Swine (a/k/a/ "Mexican") Flu scare as he did from the Avain flu scare. And St Albert of the climate change cult is making as much from the swine flu scare as he will make from carbon emission trading.
Knowing that the causes for war in Iraq were pretty much made up. And the reason the previous administration was so eager to use torture was to provide a non-existent link between Saddam Hussein and alQaeda. was the current flu pseudo-pandemic created in a bio weapons lab? Is it all somehow related to the 81 microbiologists who have died mysterious deaths since 9/11?
Or is it all just a coincidence, perfectly timed to distract the masses from the ongoing torture debate? Personally, I'll go for the latter.