I'm Certain I'll Never See Afghanistan Again
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I left home when I was very young and started traveling. When I was 13 I hitchhiked from NYC to Miami, a practice run for my Great Escape, a couple years later, to California (by thumb) in order to stow away on a boat to Tonga. (I got caught on the ship in San Pedro Harbor.) Eventually I made it over to Europe, bought a VW van and drove to India. I had an awesome 6-7 years. When anyone would ask me what country I liked most I would always say I would have to take pieces of Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan to find my ideal country. (Afghanistan was because of the people.) But since I visited, all three have been torn apart in brutal civil wars. I've been back to Sri Lanka and Nepal but I'm certain I'll never see Afghanistan again.
Robert Greenwald-- brave, dedicated soul-- visited Afghanistan last month. This film he shot gives you an idea why it's not a place Americans can go any longer. It should also give you an idea about why DWT has been so adamant about defeating the $97 billion War Supplemental. What we were doing to the Afghan people was unspeakable when it was Cheney and Bush. It's no better now that it's Obama and Rahm Emanuel. It has to stop.
Labels: Afghanistan, supplemental budget
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 5:00 AM
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I will only say that there are greater powers in Washington that the President. The "imperial Presidency" is a mirage. The real power resides in the military/intelligence/industrial/banking conglomerate.
Having a Democrat in the White House helps to clarify this. When Reagan or the Bushes are in power and their goals are consonant with the conglomerate we can hope that the Dem will change things.
But when Clinton was in, and now in retrospect, we see that the powers-that-be got pretty much what they wanted: banking deregulation, more trade deals, Western expansionism into Eastern Europe with the break-up of Yugoslavia. In the mid-nineties after the Soviet Union fell the US oil companies were in Afghanistan negotiating to get a pipeline through it. That's still the game.
And the most depressing part is that whoever had been elected it would have been the same. McCain? Natch. Hillary Clinton? Of course. John Edwards? Well, if he'd survived the sex scandals to reach the White House he would have had a gun to his head. Or his plane would have crashed a la other progressives. But the system is pretty fail-proof. Nobody who is going to change anything would ever reach those heights, and if he/she did they would be taken care of. Blues run the game.
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