Pickering? As in "failed bid" to make it to the Supreme Court, that Pickering? John Kerry and Norm Coleman? Coleman of the got his ass handed back to him by George Galoway? That Norm Coleman? (Galway? Galoway?) Please excuse any and all misspellings. Steve? Is Washington just another dump site for failing and used up political hacks? Pickering? Coleman? What exactly did the Pickering/Jones Afghanistan Study Group "study?" Genocide? Illegal detention? CIA rendition? Friendly fire? Torture? Gosh, I remember how that CIA goon hung that poor Afghan farmer up by his wrists at Bagram Airbase and beat the man to DEATH. Did the Study Group "study" that? I'll be looking forward to your critique of what this collection of barbarians produces. WE ARE WATCHING IT ALL!

Military/energy complex to Congress: "SEND MORE MONEY. Despite the fact we've already spent $600 BILLION in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're not happy. If Congress can simply waste $100 Billion on economic stimulus, we are entitled to get much, much more, simply because we are more important than the American people. And we know how to spend the American people's debt better than they do."

Interesting that it all seems to be judged monetarily, like throwing the money away somehow supercedes the act of throwing the lives away.

When Pakistan was allowed to airlift Taliban out of Afghanistan the handwriting was on the wall, that this was just one more choreographed fake "war" where a true "victory" was not the goal nor the logical outcome.

Every American soldier who died or was maimed in Afghanistan had their lives SQUANDERED by this Administration and the cowardly treasonous body known as "Congress".

One cannot look at the events of the last seven years and honestly state with any force of conviction that this nation is what it claims to be, or what the founding fathers intended it to be. In my fifty five years I have gone from pride to shame. Our government has turned us into a monster, a scourge on humanity and the planet.

Germane to the US involvement in Afghanistan are two recent articles by M K Bhadrakumar :

US, Britain stung by an Afghan temper

http://tinyurl.com/2b639c
and an older one, accessed from my name url:

NATO hears 'noise before defeat'

Also there is a great discussion on the Pashtun's on "Democracy Now" today, Jan 30. Is sad to me that in discussions of foreign countries, it is usually only the spin from the point of view of "US interests" that gets discussed, with representatives from the country involved generally absent. But then the attempt to impose a compliant regime would be too obvious?

Applicable to the US war for hegemony is this quote from the FIRST leaflet of the University of Munich "White Rose" student resistance organization:

"Do not forget that every people deserve the regime they are willing to endure? Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day?"

--First leaflet of the White Rose, student resistance group at the University of Munich 1942

Does this not apply to America ?

Is not every honest American ashamed of what his country has done, and is doing?

Are we aware of what this will do to our children and grandchildren, and then extent to which they will despise this generation?

That our NATO allies are balking in Afghanistan in entirely understandable to me. We were the ones who were attacked on 9/11, and we are the ones who chose to empower warlords and underresource Afghanistan, putting our effort into the Iraq sideshow. We are the ones who let the Pakistanis play us for fools.

That our allies want to distance themselves from this developing disaster is entirely understandable.

You may be WATCHING IT ALL, SF, but you can't be watching very carefully if you can't tell the difference between Thomas Pickering and Charles Pickering.

Sigh.

Ah you can't tell the Pickerings without a program. Sorry, my bad. Yes, I admit to not being able to watch it all "carefully." There's a lot to watch. Sorry there Rosengart if I've disturbed your tea. I really didn't mean to disturb your tea, really I didn't. Would it be satisfactory with you if I submit my comments to you first for "proper clearance and editing?" Are Thomas and Charles Pickering brothers? I may have missed that in the watching stuff drill. Maybe just cousins. Whatever. That Afghanistan Study Group Report is out and wow, Afghanistan is a failure. Should I have "cleared" that with you Rosengart? The Atlantic Council is "lamenting" and Pickering is singing the songs of a "nail in the coffin." Paddy Ashdown pissed off Bush's puppet Hamid and now, Afghanistan is in the dumper. Wow, Afghanistan is always in the dumper. Gosh, it was the Reagan go around in Afghanistan that gave us al-Qaeda, courtesy of the CIA, in the first place. Wait, I should have "cleared" that with Rosengart. Sorry, I couldn't wait for Rosengart to give us the okie-dokie. Hey Rosie, what have I missed that I should have been watching for and then got your permission to say anything at all?

Any plan to 'win Iraq' is a plan to lose Afghanistan.

I listened to Sarah Chayes on Vermont Public Radio a moment ago
where she described how the Taliban terrorizes the local
population into submission. Her position is that US policies in
Afghanistan must focus not on the Afghan government but the
people. I am afraid we will be able to tell very shortly whether the
people of Afghanistan lose.

Ms. Chayes has a website: www.sarahchayes.net