a figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, as “scepter” for “sovereignty,” or “the bottle” for “strong drink,” or “count heads (or noses)” for “count people.”

My bold.

Not close to what you wrote or to what was written, is it?

______________________

follow-on:

Just as McCain is catching flak, in some quarters, for his “anti-torture” rhetoric; as there is a political block in this country that is “down” with torture — so, too, many are tacitly “down” with the unvarnished oil-grab aims of Bush/Cheney & Company.

“So we had to launch an aggressive war (”the supreme international crime”) — with as many as one million dead; several million “displaced;” a-trillion-dollars-and-counting spent — in order to maintain our lighted, heated, TV-watching, web-surfing, SUV-driving, plastic-and-pesticide-laden lifestyle. So what?”

I’m not sure what “…instead of exposing it to the killing (of mostly American lives) fields and deserts of Iraq–and of Afghanistan.” means. Mostly Iraqi lives, it seems to me…

Thanks.

The real, true “strategic” objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan:

- de-nationalize their oil industries

- expel “foreign suitors”

- hand-over control to “our” Giants (and their related service and subsidiary companies: Exxon, BP, Haliburton, Bechtel, etc., etc.)

Unravel the tapestry of lies in which these military conquests are cloaked, and examine how control of oil (Iraq) and “the pipeline” (Afghanistan) has changed as a consequence.

This (latest) US/British conquest Iraq, in particular, then reveals itself for what it is: one of the biggest armed robberies in all of human history (the biggest, thus far, of this nascent new century).

see:

Terrorized by “War on Terror,” by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The So-Call “War on Terror,” by Richard Behan

Crude Designs, by Greg Muttitt

Slick Connections, by Erik Leaver and Greg Muttitt

Cheney’s Energy Task Force

The White House Iraq Group

1994: The Taliban emerges as the strongest faction of the Muslim Afghan Mujahideen rebels.

I think that it is important to recognize the local origin of the Taliban.
I think of the Taliban as a kind of Afghani/Pakistani equivalent to the “Rednecks” of the American West. Almost all sources acknowledge that the Taliban are strongly Pashtun, and in the border country, you just can’t get any more local than that. So we can forget about “removing the Taliban.” It ain’t gonna happen, any more than you can remove the rednecks from Wyoming (or Texas, or Arizona,…)

The best way, long term, to deal with the Taliban is to provide more and better educational opportunities in the area. There is no system of “higher education” in the border country, and not all that much lower education, either. That means that both Pakistan and Afghanistan have essentially abdicated any responsibility for educating the next generation of residents. This leaves education in the hands of the local mullahs. The Koran is the basic textbook, and the local mullahs give it their own spin, which is usually saturated with xenophobia. Bin Laden would stick out like a sore thumb there– except that he’s married into the local clans (yes, that is plural, and yes, he is polygamous). He’s stuck with them, and they’re stuck with him.

Of course, you can’t just send a bunch of Rhodes Scholars into the villages of Waziristan. We need to support centers of higher learning in border towns like Quetta (in Pakistan) and Kandahar (in Afghanistan), being careful to not try to do too much too fast. Emphasize the development of skills and trades that are locally useful, as well as literacy. Use Paolo Freire’s approach. If we put just half the dollars we put onto bombs into education, instead, it would make a huge difference.

Question: How many teachers could you pay for a year in the border towns for the cost of ONE American bomb of the size and throw weight typically used in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Bob in HI

Oh, and BTW, that’s a doozy of a lead sentence :-)

Bob in HI