Comments on: Is Closing Guantanamo Just a Bait and Switch?

By: bluebutterfly

bluebutterfly — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:55:37 +0000

” Under pressure from his Western allies and facing a constitutional crisis at home, President Karzai of Afghanistan is expected to call a snap election for April 21 in an effort to wrongfoot his opponents.

The President’s term of office ends on May 21 and there have been increasing demands for him to stand down on that date and pass control to a caretaker government until the vote. Government officials say that the constitution is ambiguous and that Mr Karzai can remain in office. “

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....805118.ece

By: bluebutterfly

bluebutterfly — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:11:12 +0000

He might be forced to end the war simply because of the supply problem. How’s this for unintended consequences?
***********

” Islamabad’s capitulation to the Taleban over the Swat Valley has raised fears that the Pakistan route, which accounts for 75 per cent of supplies, could soon be closed.

“The Taleban know if they make a pincer movement they can choke off that access completely,” Mr Neill said. “The options for the US are closing rapidly.”

That is why, for the first time, people are thinking the unthinkable: Iran. Last week a US Nato commander said that individual member countries could seek supply routes through Iran. ”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....805172.ece

By: bluebutterfly

bluebutterfly — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:56:56 +0000

” “The future of democracy will be in serious question,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst in Lahore. “The [Islamabad] government will find it difficult to cope with governance because political survival will be the main consideration for them.”

The supreme court ruled that Sharif, a former prime minister, could not stand for parliament as a result of an old criminal conviction. It also disqualified his brother, Shahbaz, who was head of the provincial government in Punjab, Pakistan’s richest and most populous province, forcing him to immediately quit the job. “

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....e-pakistan

By: macaquerman

macaquerman — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:26:32 +0000

As far as the murdering civilians goes, I wouldn’t quibble about it being horrible. I try to mention the firebombing of Tokyo every time someone brings up Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

By: macaquerman

macaquerman — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:15:50 +0000

I was unaware taht I was advocating or condoning bombing dark people for profit.
I’m pretty sure that we supplied a great deal of food and fuel for starving and freezing people. The money wouldn’t act as quickly.
Of course, keeping all those people alive and then helping them rebuild their countries was good for the US a decade or so later. Therefore it was really rotten and selfish that we did it and you have no reason at all to thank us.

By: DrZen

DrZen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:51:01 +0000

build = buy, sorry.

By: DrZen

DrZen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:49:40 +0000

It’s about time Americans stopped thinking that helping the Russians and us win the war against the Nazis gives them a free pass to bomb dark people in pursuit of a profit.

macaquerman, all you gave us was money, and your chief aim was to rebuild our economies so we could build the goods your booming economy was producing. It also didn’t escape you that if we remained poor and desperate we’d likely turn to communism, and wouldn’t want your goods in large enough numbers. Don’t pretend otherwise. And let’s not quibble over the terminology when we are discussing murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

By: macaquerman

macaquerman — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:44:24 +0000

Pakistan needs to open schools to educate their children more than it needs goggles.
Let them use their military to guard schools in the Swat Valley so that their daughters don’t have to forego their education for fear of being attacked by fools with guns.

By: bluebutterfly

bluebutterfly — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:36:13 +0000

” WASHINGTON - Pakistan’s foreign minister said Wednesday that his country has asked the United States to provide unmanned aircraft that would allow Pakistan to strike extremists hiding in rugged terrain along the Afghan border.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors that Pakistan, and not the United States, should have control of the missile strikes that have killed high-level extremists but also civilians.

Pakistan, he said, needs more helicopters and night-vision technology to better fight militants. “

http://www.opednews.com/populu.....nkid=83801

By: Watson

Watson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:47:43 +0000

I clearly recall lefty demonstrators behind the Union with signs saying, “Smash Muslim Resistance in Afghanistan” and “Hail the Red Army”. I can tell you their names.

Some context from a 1990 statement of the International Bolshevik Tendency:

‘For well over a year, we have been involved in a continuing polemic with the Spartacists over the political adaptation to the Stalinist bureaucracy implicit in their slogan ‘‘Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!’’ We counterposed the slogan, ‘‘Military Victory to the Soviet Army!’’

[snip]

‘Afghanistan is not Poland. The social and economic integration of Afghanistan into the Soviet Union in the 1980s would have represented greater social progress for the Afghan masses than the incorporation of Poland into the USSR in 1939 would have meant for the Polish workers.

‘But the reason that the Fourth International refused to ‘‘hail’’ the Red Army, while militarily supporting it against Hitler’s armies, was, as Trotsky made clear, because of the political character of the Stalinist bureaucracy which controlled the army. Fifty years later, Gorbachev’s pullout from Afghanistan (a betrayal of Afghan women, leftists and others who placed their trust in the USSR) once again demonstrates the correctness of Trotsky’s refusal to hail the ‘‘military politics’’ of the Stalinist ruling caste.’