NOTE: This is an article about a firm called Triple Canopy. There will be a LOT of talk about this firm in the very near future.

Thank you.

DW

we failed to learn our lessons in nam so maybe we will learn them with iraq and afghanistan

dont bet on it most americans still think they can do no wrong

watched a show on nam tonight and every soldier was proud of the vietnamese they killed and wanted to kill more to win that war

we are a war mongering country and dont have a clue we are

even most demos are imperialists

nation building will have a price bankruptcy

there now few realize it

the end result bye bye middle class

By all means, have whatever opinions you like about what should be done about Afghanistan by the U.S. and the other 40 countries with troops or services there, and the UN agencies, and the ICRC delegations, and the NGOs and the 60+ donor nations. But don’t propagate phrases like “military occupation” or the other one “brutal invasion” (which also did not occur). They are propaganda, since they are not supported by fact. Regardless of anyone’s point of view on Afghanistan, if it is a sincere and reasoned point of view, it should not mind the application of fact.

In point of fact, the U.S. cannot unilaterally withdraw all of its troops (it can withdraw, but must negotiate that in NATO). Also, if you think that would remove foreign influence from the region, none of the development organizations would go anywhere, nor will watchdog groups. And if you think peace would break out all over in that region with foreign withdrawal, you are seriously kidding yourself. If you even think it is possible for the U.S. to order the withdrawal of all “nation building” people from Afghanistan, you are likewise kidding yourself, as nobody from some of the organizations will budge with millions of refugees and IDPs and an active war in around 1/3 of the country, a still tattered economy and weak organs of state and local government. Many of them will continue to work on those problems, many have been there since 1978, and do not have the mandate in their charters to leave when they think too big a mess has been made.

To macaquerman @38, you’re welcome.

…”Meanwhile, Tom Englehardt provides us with some chilling metrics of the monstrosity in “Afghanistan by the Numbers: Measuring a War Gone to Hell.” He marshals an array of thoroughly sourced facts to paint a damning picture of where we are now in Afghanistan — in free fall toward the fiery pit. Read the whole thing — and know rage and despair.

These are remarkably grim days; remarkable to watch a government commiting the same awful crimes, making the same murderous mistakes, displaying the same brutal arrogance and sheer pig-ignorance that we have seen over and over and over again, decade after decade.
Every story out of Afghanistan reads like a dispatch from the botch and butchery in Korea, or the blundering frenzy in Vietnam, or the still-boiling bloodbath in Iraq. No lesson is ever learned from these depraved episodes, save one: empire means money and power for the few — so do whatever the hell you have to do to climb into that golden circle and stay there.”

“Metrics of Monstrosity” Chris Floyd,Empire Burlesque(link to follow)