Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
....Afghans seem increasingly uncertain about their country’s fate once the Americans withdraw. Asylum applications to other countries are at an all-time high, while passport applications have overwhelmed the Afghan Foreign Ministry’s ability to process them. More than 500 people line up outside the passport office in Kabul every morning even in the bitterest weather. Many respected Afghans have fled the country......Cash moving through Kabul International Airport has gone up drastically in the past year, so that now about $4 billion is leaving the country, in a legitimate annual economy of about $15 billion.
Comments
The Times article ends on this note:
Truth is, it's not "the most important thing," it's the ONLY thing. And increasingly, it's not directed at the Afghan people. We've had a full decade to try to win them over, and today we're more hated than when we went in. Way to go.
No, it's the domestic U.S. audience and the public in allied and rival nations for whom we're trying to spin this whole messy, drawn-out exit as achieving "peace with honor." Once again, hundreds if not thousands more will die so politicians and generals can put lipstick on the ugly face of war.
We all know why. Because otherwise, they might not be allowed to do it again. That would be a pity.
by acanuck on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 2:19pm
Obama made a big error when he went along with Petraeus and the Generals, and didn't go with the Biden plan to NOT do The Surge in Afghanistan, and keep a lower profile. Former ambassador Eikenberry also said, according to leaked cables, that the surge would just make things worse. The troops are fed up with the war, and so are the illiterate peasants who make up 80% of the country. Who was it who said war is too important to trust to Generals?
by NCD on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 3:19pm
Do you give weight to the coup threats echoing arould AFPAK policy fights?
by jollyroger on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 8:54pm
I don't think a coup was the issue. Instead the reasons we're staying in Afghanistan is based on intelligence which is not shared with the public. Whether it justifies the decisions to stay and fight and make the "lies" to the public will be only known maybe 20 or 30 years from now.
by Elusive Trope on Tue, 03/13/2012 - 9:06pm
Even with the great (bullshitter) Ron Paul in the White House, we could not have quickly ended the Afghan adventure. The Prez changes and the military/industrial/political complex goes on. The right got rid of JFK, and Nixon (it was not some triumph of justice or the left, he was too liberal for the neanderthals of the right) and they could make O a one termer if he 'cut an run' in Kabul.
by NCD on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 11:11am
by jollyroger on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 3:43pm
@ Guardian.co.uk, "Afghanistan 13 min ago":
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 12:49pm
Was the guy one of ours or one of theirs?
by NCD on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 12:56pm
Ok, I got the joke, but moving on further, now you got me thinking of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, how he was one of the people who was supposed to be figuring out who was mentally fit for duty.....
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 1:49pm
Strange stuff coming out: an Afghan civilian, who worked on the base, in a stolen NATO pickup truck (he carjacked it from a soldier,) and it was him that was on fire and not the truck:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leon-panetta-arriv...
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/14/2012 - 4:35pm
by artappraiser on Sat, 03/17/2012 - 3:43am
Math, please, some math.
500 people a day would be 180,000 in year.
From a country of 36 million, that's 0.5% of the population.
Hardly a "rush".
Regarding "legitimate" economy, most of the money's in illegitimate, including poppy trade and selling protection to US & other foreign troops, as well as simple siphoning off of US aid to Afghanistan.
Of course that money's going to Switzerland and elsewhere.
Monthly spending for the war in Afghanistan has *dipped down* to $5.3 billion a month. So only having 1/15th of that disappear out through the airport? Let's not be ungrateful for their accommodating our world leader illusions.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/17/2012 - 12:59pm
I don't get why you're downplaying this, Peracles. Five hundred people a day is the number lining up for passports now. The smart people, the ones with money and connections, have had a decade to get their papers in order and plan (if not carry out) their exits.
And nearly one-third of the official GDP being siphoned out of the economy is a very big deal. The bulk of the drug profits are made abroad, and never return to Afghan soil. They go into Swiss banks and stay there, awaiting reunion with their owners. The $5.3 billion a month is what the Pentagon spends, not what it puts into Afghan pockets, which is a pittance. What does come in as direct aid vanishes in a mist of government corruption and (we can agree) constitutes at least some of what gets sent out of the country.
Point is, it's all a waste of lives and treasure. We've built a really expensive sand castle in really windswept terrain. It can't last, and offers nothing to the average Afghan. Let it go.
by acanuck on Sat, 03/17/2012 - 2:57pm
by jollyroger on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 3:45pm
I got that in the "Let's not be ungrateful ..." remark, but the rest of the comment is puzzling in tone. Maybe just an overlong setup to the punch line. But still wrong.
by acanuck on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 5:54pm