I also find the arguments made here for staying in Afghanistan to rely more on emotion than a careful analysis of the situation, taking into consideration different factors and points of view. Statements, like “If we leave Afghanistan alone, there will be another 9/11.” are easily thrown out, but without any supporting information or argument.

But you keep believing false rhetoric and spin from any of them.

As a bleeding heart liberal I served my country for fifteen years in total. I also supported my husband that he could serve and now, proudly my son serves. I see my job now as ensuring that any conflict we engage in is true and ethical, and that our leaders are transparent with regards to foreign actions.

I won’t bother going into other reasoning on this as RC, Norman and Sunshine coast already did. Apparently we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

“… Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research, the highest religious authority in Egypt, issued a statement saying FGM/C has no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions and that it is harmful and should not be practiced.”

I don’t want to dwell on that because, the more important fact is that you open your blog to different and conflicting views. That’s what I wish would happen at large media outlets. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen. For example, letters to the editor at Canwest die a quick death if they effectively challenge conventional wisdom.

The comment above from RC, repeating an article first published at Casey Research, has good points to ponder. I don’t share their entire world view but their statements are certainly worth reading.

These last few days Keeping it Real has been an excellent forum for exchange of ideas. Thanks.

(Response: Partly yes. Especially after receiving such a widespread negative reaction to my view! But notice I published them all! However, I decided his deserved special treatment also because he was the only one to write to this blog, from his personal perspective and experience of actually being Afghan and directly from there. (Just like I featured a letter from an actual paramedic ..not one from the rest of us chatting about them.) h.o)

The whole issue boils down to this, in case it wasn’t so clear in my previous note: the entire lot of nutters and whackjobs who “govern various, dare I say, most, countries in the Middle East are all-consumed by anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic bromide. They want to wipe Israel from the map, and continue to stop young girls from going to school; degrade and dehumanize through acts like clitoral mutilation; deny homosexuals the right to free expression, freedom of anything; expand the many classes of poor so that wealthier castes can reward 16 year olds with 18KT Ferraris; mauling Christians and Jews; building nuclear arsenals and, ultimately, to seek world domination.

No?

After Ahmadinejhad suggested that Israel should be “wiped from the map”, how many surrounding countries in the Middle East condemned his words? One: Israel.

All this other historical revisionism and manipulation means nothing.

There is no ‘pro-war’ crowd on this blog. I hate war, in case reading doesn’t come easy, a few posts up , I just finished telling you of how my mother and I can’t talk about her childhood. Miss that? And I can’t think of a more decent guy than Oberfeld. Harv’s a war monger because he’s got his head screwed on right, eh?

Iraq and Afghanistan must be tightly held by the West, or the Middle Eastern countries will fully conspire, quietly or not, to eliminate Israel, and if another Holocaust ensues, that’s okay, because the brave and gallant Canadian soldier will have been spared from the very risk inherent in becoming one. What a bunch of nanny-state bleeders!

The war effort by this country is entirely in line with the fine traditions of servicemen and servicewomen that we have offered the world from the Great War on.

And no amount of frothy mouthed nonsense from some Afghani woman co-opted by the peace movement is going to change that, or the threat to Israel or the rest of us might as well hit DEFCON 1.

How come you don’t offer an opportunity to listen to the endless number of academics and Afghani ex-pats who give a thumbs up to the war effort?

Oh, sorry, you must be busy watching news reports this morning intimating how the Iranians are further developing their uranium.

Strictly for nuclear energy, of course…

(Response: As always, it will no doubt end with us realists havng to save the rear ends of all the skeptic types who throughout history believedthe lines delivered by people like Chamberlain, Kennedy Sr., Ford and Lingbergh and those who dismised reports of concentration camps as ridiculous “myth” and who thought the Soviet Union just wanted to liberate the Balkans/ Hungary etc. h.o)

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Afghan+speak+Victoria+believes+occupation+answer/2225631/story.html

(Response: In any country, free or not, peole have different views, even if they are constrained from saying it for fear of arrest etc. Her view, from what she has seen, is quite different from mine (based on what I have read or seen reported). So of course you might tend to accept her version over mine. However ,what I find most perplexing is how you accept her view, but reject the view of Shah, who is also from Afghanistan and wrote on my blog supporting our actions. Perhaps becasue she fits your pre-conceived leaning, and he fits mine? h.o.)

Looking up Afghanistan in the CIA Fact Book reveals the nation’s official population tally at some 28 million.

But that number is totally, dangerously wrong.

Dangerous because the erroneous population count sets the stage for a certain failure of the United States military’s efforts in Afghanistan, and even raises the possibility of a nuclear conflagration.

I will attempt to quickly explain.

The story begins with an Englishman by the name of Mortimer Durand who, in 1893, was tasked with drawing a border separating Afghanistan from British conquests in India. Other than dictates from the Raj to assure the Brits kept the strategic parts, Durand’s line was arbitrary.

In this way was divided the population of Afghani Pashtuns, the region’s dominant ethnic group.

On one side of the invisible line, in modern-day Afghanistan, live about 12 million Pashtuns (out of a total population of 28 million). Tucked up against the other side of the line, in what now constitutes Pakistan, live another 25 million Pashtuns.

Simply, they are members of the same large family – a family with a long and colorful history of putting aside their internecine shoot-ups in order to come together to wear down and ultimately defeat far stronger and better equipped invaders.

Now, look at the map here.

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As you can’t miss, there is very long and uninterrupted border between the countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A border no more substantial than the ink Durand used to draw it over a century ago.

Across that border, in a region of incredibly hard terrain, flows an almost uninterrupted exchange of relatives, food, guns, refugees, and warriors in need of rest and sustenance, donkeys, RPGs, and any other thing the Pashtuns and other Afghani insurgent groups want to move in one direction or the other.

In the past, I have referenced (and recommended) David Galula’s excellent manual Counter Terrorist Warfare: Theory and Practice, the very same manual that General Petraeus, on taking the reins in Iraq, purchased in bulk for his officers. In his book, Galula lays out the required conditions for success in fighting a guerilla war. At the top of the list is that the insurgents can have no safe sanctuary to which they can retreat to for rest and resupply.

Simply, the Pakistani Pashtun problem alone makes sending more troops into Afghanistan a non-starter. The border separating the Pashtun populations is too long and too rough to control. And so the insurgency will never want for supplies, sanctuary, or fresh soldiers for its struggle. That gives it a staying power well beyond that the latest crop of invaders will be able to manage as the months and years string out and the casualties rise.

Of course, the U.S. could decide to take the war to the Pakistani Pashtuns, using more than just drone strikes. But such an invasion would necessitate pacifying a large, well-armed, and hostile population. It would also likely result in the toppling of our allies in the fragile Pakistani regime. That could then require an even broader action or risk Pakistan’s nukes falling under the radicals’ control. And that would quickly bring India into the picture.

In other words, should the U.S. decide to invade nuclear-armed Pakistan, the whole situation would quickly get so wiggly that there’s no telling where it could lead, but it’s doubtful it would lead anywhere good.

Which leaves the U.S. and its allies with only two alternatives. Get out or continue trying to pacify the Pashtuns (among others) in Afghanistan, while a huge number of their brethren are actively are cheering them on – and providing material support – from just across Durand’s line. While I am no expert, I have read enough history – and Galula’s manual – to form the strong opinion that such an effort will end poorly.

Maybe we can get tougher? Really take off the gloves and all that stuff?

Well, it’s hard to imagine how we could get tougher than the Soviets, or Genghis Khan, or Alexander the Great, or all the other invaders that didn’t just capture the region but actively tried to exterminate the population. The Soviets, much to their discredit, actually went so far as to drop bombs designed to look like toys, in order to blow off the arms of the next generation of mujahedeen.

The Afghans are still standing.

Then there’s the all-important question, what exactly is it we are fighting for? On that topic, I’ll have to defer to someone who purportedly knows — or should know: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two months ago, he was asked which benchmark the U.S. was using to measure its success and progress in Afghanistan. His response, “We’ll know it when we see it.”

Pathetic.

So, why am I writing this article, knowing that it will offend pro-war readers?

First and foremost, because of my distain for foreign adventures and my hope that a pushback from an increasing number of Americans will keep Obama from going deeper into Afghanistan. Secondly, there is a moral issue here. We can’t very well call ourselves the land of the free if we are fighting wars here, there, and everywhere for objectives that even our senior diplomat in the area is unable to enunciate.

And then there is the less important, but still important, question of finances.

Namely, the U.S. is already broke. Thus, the idea of spending trillions of dollars on a war with no clear objective and no clear enemy is not just stupid, it is madness. I read recently that the U.S. spends $350 million a day on fuel alone in Afghanistan and Iraq. Money that is ultimately being spent to support a fraudulent regime that condones the sort of religious intolerance you’d expect to be championed by a mullah from the Middle Ages.

Finally, there is the truth inherent in the old saying, “War is the health of the state.” This war, like so many others, opens the door for the government not only to rationalize the sort of fiscal irresponsibility just discussed, but also to exert more and more control over the populace, all in the name of “national security.” Over the last 100 years, the U.S., despite its high-road self-image, has engaged in more wars, in more countries, than all of the other Western powers combined. Of course, some have made more sense than others. But this one makes no sense at all.

In my opinion, having fired off some shots that cost far too many lives, it’s time for the U.S. to end this madness and head home. Sticking our face ever deeper into the dark hole that is Afghanistan is not just futile, it’s crazy.

Don’t do it.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/displayCddPrint.php?id=277

(Response: You disdain foreign adventures. So we should not have gone to save Europe during the First or Second World Wars?? Some foreign adventures THERE save us from dangers/attack HERE. And if you don’t think Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups would attack us here, kill thousands if they could , you aren’t listening to what THEY THEMSELVES say. h.o)