WTF are our goals over there?

Those WTF goals in Afghanistan are as elusive as WMD's in Iraq.

Interesting article @ sig.

Warning - rabbit hole.

Years before 9/11 the news media reported on the cruelty towards women in Afghanistan, so whwever put the bull out about Taliban 'done no wrong' is crap.

The Taliban not only denied women basic education but health care services, force teenage girls to marry older men, and often keep women in poverty, and whip any woman or others who dares defy them. To deny the Taliban has not aided Al Queida is ignorance.

For decades before the U.S. was hit on 9/11, these so-called terrorist blew up their own people, and use women and children as suicide bombers. I have no sympathy for those responsible.

Many of you claim the press did not report this or that and I have wonder, where the hell were you, or maybe it is because your reading is limited.

As far as the press reporting on intelligence. You can't report on something that is kept secret. Not even congress got detailed reports for the CIA, (our secret government).

Most of what Glenn reports is NOT NEW, but something that has already been reported somewhere else. It does gibe a forum for debte, but the debate is always the same a paranoia.

The camp for the infotainment whores will use older music by Teh Village People.

well, now, why does such a group with no express goals (i.e., no political purpose) get financed to begin with? Is it a hobby for "rich middle easterners" like racehorses? And is it really only Middle Easterners?

they don't want anything but to create disorder--that's their mandate

That's an interesting contention... I'm suspicious, though: it sounds an awful lot like the slander thrown at 19th century anarchists (and some today), that all they want is chaos for its own sake.

I always assumed that the general drift was to weaken non-shari'a governments - disorder might be a tool in that effort, but not an end in itself. Please enlighten me, though, if I've got that wrong.

General cluestickery:

"prima facie"

القاعدة: al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, el-Qaida, or al Qaeda, never "Al Quaeda"

"muslim"

Saying al Quida, who ever they may be, has no other aim but to cause dis order is pure neocon fear talk. ALL terror gangs have clear objectives. Perhaps you ought to wonder just exactly told you that and why might they have an interest in you not knowing of any actual aims that al Quida might have.

Yes, Chris I understand all that. I understand it so well that Glenn asked me to not mention the topic so often, and not lay into the local protected species so hard.

So, I try to stay on the general topic of interventionism, war, and torture. They are all related, and they are all related to Glenn's main issue of Civil Rights for Americans. As we stay at war overseas, we are losing rights and freedoms at home as Greenwald documents here on a weekly basis. (if not a daily basis)

Why can some here not see that war strengthens the hand of the government to take away civil rights?

The most "humanitarian" thing America could do is show the world how to live in peace and prosperity for all. Lead by doing, in other words.

'The mistake is made by those on the right and center who seek to broaden their Al Qaida mandate to other countries troubles, and by those on the left who seek to find some kind of validation for anti-imperialist rhetoric on the other."

Right. Your entire comment was very thoughtful and so right on.

Thanks for the link, I will read it today or tomorrow.

I already know my favorite president was not the man with clean hands I thought he had back in the day. In fact, finding out about Jimmy Carter was the blow that made me realize that both parties are the problem.

I still think Jimmy was better than the rest; for whatever that is worth.

1. Maybe it is. What else do you do when you have too much money to spend in one lifetime? I don't know the answer as to why. I do know that its quite obvious that AL Qaeda has no goals--that is none that are achievable. Anymore than Christian fundamentalists have goals that are achievable. This is a great clip from Reza Aslan, who I think has the most credibility on this issue right now of all the pundits and thinkers that I know...

http://fora.tv/2009/05/12/Reza_Aslan_How_to_Win_a_Cosmic_War

Really worth listening to the whole hour.

2. I use Middle East in the political sense, not the geographic one...Pakistan is part of the Middle East in that designation and so is Iran.

Don't bother with trying to get evidence from ondelette that doesn't support his crusade, he is a starry-eyed chichenhawk idealist that believes in the myth that one can wage a nice, legal, honest war, with rules and laws and treaties, rules that all parties follow and are held accountable for when violated. "We don't wage war like that anymore" said the mighty chickenhawk from behind the safety of his keyboard.

He sees war as a poison that one can build immunity to, allowing one to wield it and drink without the negative side effects, a hero that is strong enough to drink the poison without it having an effect on him, like some swashbuckling Dread Pirate Roberts. It's all just another flavor of Exceptionalist nonsense of course.

That's probably why he hates the burn pits in Iraq so much. Not because they pollute though, oh heaven's no, he doesn't care when the benevolent armored hand that he loves massively pollutes (he downplays the pits instead). The pits expose the reality that he so clearly doesn't want believe, the reality that the state gives not a shit about rules, laws, treaties, regulations, or accountability (unless the state is applying such constructs to others of course), and that such disregard will undermine everything he claims to believe.