In a Nutshell

[Michael Tee]

<<Karzai knows the only way to end the Afghan conflict is to enfranchise the nation’s Pashtun majority and its fighting arm, the Taliban. Political compromise with the Taliban is the only — and inevitable — solution.

<<But the Obama administration, misadvised by Washington neocons and other hardliners, is determined to “win” a military victory in Afghanistan (whatever that means) to save face as a great power and impose a settlement that leaves it in control of strategic Afghanistan.>>

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2010/04/09/13530691.html

[BT]

And the strategic importance of Afghanistan is?

[Michael Tee]

The current theory is for a gas pipeline route.  There's probably more to it than that - - bases for attacks on Russian or Chinese targets, bases for the subversion of other Central Asian nations of strategic importance in their own right.  In the Great Game, sometimes the players have a better idea than the onlookers of the value of any particular piece or any particular square.  It's important or the U.S. wouldn't be blowing its brains out in an attempt to subjugate these people.

[BT]

It's important or the U.S. wouldn't be blowing its brains out in an attempt to subjugate these people.

Why install a recalcitrant puppet if the geography is so important. Why not install someone who stays bought and paid for.

[Michael Tee]

You work with what you got.  Who BUT an unprincipled schmuck would sell out his own people to work for the invaders anyway? All the men of honour are fighting against you, but they also happen to be a bunch of fucking barbarians.  This is one place you definitely should never have gone into.  The only good guys there were the Communists, and they're long gone.  It's bad guy against bad guy, and you're worried that you can't get any good reliable help?  That's funny.

[BT]

I don't think the land is that strategically important. Karzai has a corruption problem. I doubt siding with the Taliban will save his ass. But talking about it gives him a bit of leverage.

[Michael Tee]

<<I don't think the land is that strategically important.>>

You don't buy that pipeline shit?  It doesn't sound all that persuasive to me either, but I think as a piece of real estate in a volatile area it has to have some strategic value.  All the roads out sure go to interesting places.

<<Karzai has a corruption problem. >>

Karzai?  Every fucking one of them has a "corruption problem."   Nobody there sees it as much of a problem, except for some privileged, Western-educated "reformers."   Karzai's real problem is that he's too Western for the rest of them.  He's a bigger hit with the MSM's talking heads in the West than he is with the people who really count in Afghanistan.

<<I doubt siding with the Taliban will save his ass.>>

He's toast as far as they're concerned.  It takes a certain amount of guts for the guy to hang in there as long as he has, but if they ever get their hands on him, he'll finish up like Najibullah.

<<But talking about it gives him a bit of leverage. >>

It would if they took him seriously.  Personally, I think he was speaking to the Afghan people, trying to hang on to whatever shrinking credibility he has as an Afghan, trying to prevent any further erosion of his image.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Just look who sits right between Iraq and Afghanistan and then
try to say the land is "not that strategically important". You think
it is some accident we have troops/bases on both sides of Iran?
As I often state....almost roads lead to the IslamoNazis in Iran.

[Michael Tee]

Also interesting if you look east and south on the map, from a 20-year perspective.  Or north.  If the U.S. ever wins control, you can bet your ass a lot of top-secret bases are going to be built in there as fast as they can.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The US would like to control Iran. The loss of Iran to the Ayatollahs and other assorted Iranians destroyed Kissingers strategy of the US having a subpuppetmaster in every area of the world. Now the US seeks to neutralize Iran by having bases and allies on both the East and West sides of the country.

I am sure that the pipeline and the various "stans" are also of interest.

[BT]

Just look who sits right between Iraq and Afghanistan and then try to say the land is "not that strategically important".

Pakistan is more a danger than Iran to us.

[Plane]

Looking north on a map I noteice that there is a large and resorce filled area just north of our own northern border.

Sparcely populated but with a population that seems trainable .


Are the lawyers that made the case for Chinas anchient governance of Tibet still about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute


Good case to be made for the rights of the mighty , and an odvious crying need for liberation.

[Michael Tee]

<<Good case to be made for the rights of the mighty , and an odvious crying need for liberation.>>

And of course the fact that our dollar is now worth more than yours has nothing at all to do with this.

[Plane]

<<Good case to be made for the rights of the mighty , and an odvious crying need for liberation.>>

And of course the fact that our dollar is now worth more than yours has nothing at all to do with this.

Another plus!

[Michael Tee]

And adding thirty-three million so-called liberals to the population, that's yet another plus?