Smells like teen spirit

“High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.” – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When I hear someone in position of authority say “I’m going to rigorously enforce [this particular law] because, without laws ..we’d be a country of anarchy” – then I watch them go out and prosecute offenders in a manner that’s way out-of-proportion to the offense – I don’t believe they’re really acting out of fondness for the law. They’re acting out of aggression that is typical of teenagers climbing the social network in high school or adults climbing the hierarchy of power in politics.

Last year, LA Dist Atty Steve Cooley waged sudden war on marijuana dispensaries because they were accepting cash instead of trading in goods and services. Apparently the law didn’t spell out an exact currency and the term ‘co-op’ could be interpreted to mean a system of barter. Turns out he was planning to run for Attorney General of California.

Arizona Sen Russell Pearce and Kris Kobach co-sponsored Arizona SB 1070 giving police the authority of INS agents to detain Hispanics where the sole probable cause is “..looking illegal.” This certainly is a subjective cause, prone to the bias of a police officer with no training as a federal immigration officer. To me, it’s the same as detaining someone on suspicion of dealing drugs because their hair’s too long. Turns out both sponsors have political ambitions. Kris Kobach is running for Secretary of State in Kansas and Pearce plans to run for president of the Senate and someday hopes to get elected Sheriff of Maricopa County.

Last week Orange County Dist Atty Tony Rackauckas decided to file criminal conspiracy charges against a group of UCI students who protested a speech on campus last year. They face both six months in jail and, as felons, diminished prospects for the future over a nonviolent protest, which may have been rude, but certainly not criminal. I suspect that Rackauckas is also seeking higher office.

sedated

Comments on -US Drone Strikes in Pakistan-Bill Roggio

Agha,

FYI.

David

The Long War Journal - Charts on US Strikes in
Pakistanas well as reporting from The *Long War Journal*. Given the Taliban's
control *...*
www.*longwarjournal*.org/pakistan-strikes.php -

ANALYSIS OF BILL ROGGIOS DRONE ANALYSIS AND BEAUTIFUL CHARTS


My dear Friend


This is waste of time and ammo . It is not changing the likely outcome of afghan war. From a close angle I see the extremists adopt improved and subtler methods !

Long War Journal is a commercial site and they have to attract readers and thus the beautiful charts ?

What has the US dine to eradicate drugs in last ten years ?

Has these drone strikes made the Afghan roads in the areas south of line Kabul Shindand safer for Afghan civilians ?

The whole premise that the extremists should present themselves as sitting ducks to US drone strikes in an area some 20 miles x 50 miles is fallacious !

Suicide bombers and IEDs can train in any area other than the above narrow strip !

How correct is Roggios data ! The charts are beautiful and Roggios site attracts traffic ! But is that the strategic objective of US military in Afghanistan ? To make Roggios site commercially viable ?

How reliable is the Humint ? We have had the Muslim 786 Drone attack on the CIA Quixotes in Khost last December 2009 !

Lets be frank that the perception on the Pakistan side is that USA wants to destroy the Pakistani state and this is their real objective while Al Qaeda is only the stated objective ?

What has the US done to change this perception ? This is being reinforced every day ! As they said “fear made men believe in the worst “ ?

To say that Russia will support the USA fight a victorious war in Afghanistan is fallacious !

Support a country designing missile shields and attempting to encircle Russia in every manner ! Constantly holding dry runs of war against Russia !

If Afghanistan is trumpeted by USA as its victory over USSR , WOULD RUSSIA ALLOW A 100,000 US MUSKETEERS TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN VICTORIOUS ?

One fact is clear ! The US casualties are low which means that there is no real fight ! US companies in Afghanistan are making big bucks !

The defense contractors you have like RONCO,Dyncorps,Xe, SSSI ,Global ,MPRI etc are making good money selling HUMNIT to the US Government ! These companise are hiring Pashto interpreters , Balochi interpreters and what not !

Louis Burger , Fluor,Black and Veach ,Red Star , Mina Corps ,TRYCO ,Halliburton,KBR and Seven Seas may your Afghan success stories ! Certainly private business did well in Afghanistan ! But what about the soldiers real job i.e the war ?

What is the on ground situation ? From 2001 to 2007 I could travel all the 1050 kilometres from Kabul to Herat in my private vehicle without a single weapon to defend myself ! Since 2007 I cannot ! How easy it is to enter Kabul ! I have driven many times from Jalalabad to Kabul after 2200 hours !

How good is the military virtue of the Afghan Army ? A military machine that the US and its hirelings destroyed in between 1978 and 1992 has still not been created ?

The question is how good is Roggios data in real tangible terms ?

You have a US force in Afghanistan surrounded by all Afghanistans neigbours who want the US to fail for various reasons ?

You pound flies with hammers with your mighty drones ? And this is the cause for a martial celebration !

The americans need to read more about the greatest army in history the Wehrmacht or the Red Army which did the real fighting for the US ! War is not New York Stock exchange and the enemy is not Dillinger who the FBI or BATF can overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun !

Datta Khel is not Ruby Ridge where neo NAZIs from BATF , FBI etc can shoot a man of honours wife like a partridge !

No war in history was won by air power alone while the 100,000 overpaid , over fed musketeers have failed to pacify Afghanistan , failed to interdict the flow of 90 % of worlds heroin to Europe and the states !

Perhaps there is a method in this madeness !

How is that Ali Jalali the most outstanding Afghan professional had to be sacrificed by the US to please the drug mafia in Afghanistan ?

I am not a religious man and this is not about religion !

The bottom line is that US policy since many years is manipulated by the US businesses may it be Oil and Gas, Wall Street or construction ! The sacred business of war has been sub letted to commercial businesses !

There is a deep question mark about Drones and I will base my assessment that God may not be with both drones or the characters that they are targeting !

The other side has an independent will and all may not proceed as Field Marshal Petraeus may desire or as a Wall Street sponsored political supremo may decide !

You have a secretary of state more fit to be in the Wallmart , clueless about strategy or war and a naieve spinster (philosophically) who has never set a squadron in the field !

This is war and it has less or good luck and bad luck and more of logical consequences of our actions and our adversaries actions !

best regards

Agha

--
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!

Afghan

I wouldn’t ordinarily be writing about the situation in Afghanistan, but since I am familiar with one of their chief exports, hashish ..I have been following the war kind of closely. I think there’s a story here. Or some half-baked ideas. I can never tell. But I was wondering, since when is it the role of army generals to build stable communities when all they’ve been trained to do throughout history is knock them down. So now we’ve put them in charge of ‘social engineering’ ..a practice we abhor in the west ..and rightly so. It doesn’t lead to ‘participatory’ government. Instead, it contributes to feelings of helplessness by replacing traditional customs with circumstances that the local population had no hand in creating ..and over which they have no control.
 

There’s another mission that’s equally unclear to me “Our goal is to break Taliban momentum.” What the hell does that mean in a town where the Taliban have already seized the means of production, which in addition to producing hashish, means subsistence-level bakeries. You think the villagers want to participate in U.S efforts to ‘break Taliban momentum’ when their survival instincts fill them with a sense of foreboding.
 

Last week Obama sacked a commanding general for using the term ‘diplomatic incoherence’ to describe the difference between what is happening in Afghanistan ..and what the U.S government would have us believe is happening in Afghanistan. Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe that giving the military contradictory goals like ‘building stable communities’ and ‘breaking Taliban momentum’ is going to lead to anything like the ‘progress’ I’ve been hearing about from politicians. I’m hunkering down for a long-term disruption in the supply of hash from Afghanistan..