Come drop your lovin’ on me child
B52 baby way up in the sky
Drop your love on me– The Cult, Peace Dog
Via email, Fred Hiatt’s fishwrap provides probably the most disgusting piece of agitprop you’ll read for a while:
But many residents near Kandahar do not share the view. They have lodged repeated complaints about the scope of the destruction with U.S. and Afghan officials. In one October operation near the city, U.S. aircraft dropped about two dozen 2,000-pound bombs.
In another recent operation in the Zhari district, U.S. soldiers fired more than a dozen mine-clearing line charges in a day. Each one creates a clear path that is 100 yards long and wide enough for a truck. Anything that is in the way – trees, crops, huts – is demolished.
“Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?” a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.
Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor’s office to submit a claim for damaged property, “in effect, you’re connecting the government to the people,” the senior officer said.
While you dirty hippies and evil leftists are focusing on the lives destroyed, what you are overlooking is that if you put on your neocon warface, you’ll realize that when we bomb civilians, kill their family members and friends, destroy their homes, their crops, and their livestock, sure there may be some hard feelings. But let’s not overlook the value of the government meet and greet!
We’re not just killing civilians and destroying their homes, but rather, this is a cleverly disguised government outreach program!
Comrade Dread
I’d like to humbly suggest that President Obama start a similar outreach program to the Wall St. Producers.
Comrade Javamanphil
Socialism! Teabaggers, you must not let this stand!
soonergrunt
Wow. What an asshole.
Ugh
STFU! We’re here to save you.
Dan
I normally agree with the wash post criticism, but here i’m going to have to disagree. when the military gives a response that is this idiotic and outrageous, I think the best thing you can do is publish it for everyone to see. This isn’t an endorsement, it’s just a statement that this is the best the military could come up with. I think it would’ve been worse for the post not to have printed this.
Linda Featheringill
Homo sapiens.
Wonderful animal.
El Cid
It’s better to be hated than ignored?
Ash Can
Assuming anyone associated with NATO even pays attention to the WaPo at this point, this article may have come at a fortuitous time. Obama is in Portugal to meet with NATO leaders this weekend on starting the process of winding down NATO involvement in Afghanistan. Maybe adverse publicity like this will encourage winding down certain activities faster.
Bullsmith
Plus killing them sets them free from all their worries. It’s a gift, really. A civilized people would show some gratitude.
NonyNony
@Dan:
Yeah, John, I’ve got to agree with Dan here. When you juxtapose this paragraph:
With this one:
You’re not exactly creating propaganda for the masses here. You’re kind of sorta doing exactly the opposite of that.
I admit that many of the folks in the US who read this aren’t going to “get” it or care. But the WaPo is written for Congressional staffers and foreign governments, they only sell it to the rest of us to attempt to break even on publishing costs. You don’t put that second paragraph in if you’re trying to create agitprop – you put that in if you’re trying to point out (without editorializing) that our military has put some brain-dead, short-sighted people in charge of something pretty important and if you’re looking for a reason that we’ve lost “hearts and minds” you’ve found it.
General Stuck
Jeebus, this is thoroughly insane. double jeebus.
El Cid
Also
How long is a while?
p.a.
Michael
I want to know who that senior official is – because if he’s real, that’s bullshit, and undoubtedly some level of classification affects that bit of policy info. If thats a made up quote, I’d like to know that, too.
Waterboard the authors until the info pops out.
AB
My new thesis:
“What *you* can do raise voter turnout in your neighborhood”
Too soon?
lacp
Yes, you’re connecting the government to the people, probably with a Tucker telephone.
El Cid
It’s funny, because a number of historians of New Deal aid programs throughout the rural South point out that it was the first time for so many rural Southerners to have had any contact with government (at any level) which wasn’t punitive.
And to think we could have just bombed the shit out of them earlier and had similar high quality contact.
Maody
@lacp: and then relatives have a get together funeral procession.
Violet
Bombing you to connect you to government! Is that a tactic we should expect to see Stateside soon?
El Cid
@Bullsmith:
That really is true — a mature culture is not founded upon material wealth but understanding of one’s self. Airstrikes as a tool for introspection and meditation has long been overrated.
El Cid
@Maody:
As long as they don’t hold a wedding party, or they’ll get another dozen or so people blown up.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
A Vietnam-era quote immediately comes to mind:
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”
@Comrade Dread:
Now there’s a proposal I can get behind!
Bullsmith
@El Cid:
It is becoming clear that weddings, at least in Muslim countries, are really a symbolic union between the gay and terrorist agendas. Expose the truth: bomb the bride.
Cacti
Destroying the village in order to save it.
An American tradition since 1964.
lacp
If we’re gonna go Vietnam-war nostalgic with the quotes, how about “Killing is our business, and business is good?”
El Cid
U.S. forces are ill-prepared to fight the NORML Liberation Front:
Exactly. If anyone is known for revolutionary support for their colleagues, it’s pot growers. And also for their sophisticated and well-executed plans for multi-stage armed operations. Surely they would not aim so low as to copy the Mexican narco-paramilitary cartel, the Zetas, who merely concentrate on massacres and assassinations and shootouts with police and military forces, when they could be blowing up bridges and stuff.
I hope U.S. intelligence is scanning High Times for coded messages.
Via TPM.
cleek
the bombing will continue until civilian-government relations improve !
Punchy
Fizz’icked.
lacp
@El Cid: Don’t you remember the Dude’s shoot-out with the SWAT team in The Big Lebowski?
TheMightyTrowel
@Linda Featheringill: a touch violent though. Best to keep a muzzle handy.
El Cid
@lacp: Too focused on the little things. If you’re not blowing up damns and such, you’re small trade.
Bob
Coming soon to an airport near you:
“Hey we stick a finger up your ass, but at least you get a government-paid prostate/breast cancer check!”
“Hey we cut off your unemployment benefits, but at least you’ll lose weight from the starvation!”
Maody
@El Cid: 21. The Colin Powell Doctrine.
@lacp: The Dude Abides.
Svensker
@El Cid:
.
How about hells and oh shits?
El Cid
@Maody:
Which one? The ‘only use overwhelming force and exit strategy,’ the waving a jar of garlic salt at the UN, the ‘Pottery Barn’ rule, or the helping out with the My Lai coverup?
PeakVT
to free an imprisoned comrade…
Comrade? The guy in jail is competitor. The other pot growers aren’t going to take over a gigantic dam to free anyone, let alone a competitor.
Oscar Leroy
I agree, that is horrible. But how many regulars at this site have made the exact same argument?
Shrillhouse
We’re winning hearts and minds. One massive explosion at a time.
Marc
Silly DougJ! This article ran in the world news section… Fred Hiatt would never let anything so uncouth onto the editorial page.
Marc
uncouthSorry, I meant “accurate.” Anything so accurate.
fucen tarmal
afghanistan was living the dream, they had a government you could drown in a bathtub, and still have room for ducky toys….
now they want to connect the government to the people, either that was very clever sarcasm, or really revealing stupidity….
WyldPirate
@Bullsmith:
Yeah, baby.
President Hopey Changey is in Lisbon right now getting ready to bring the Afghanis more govvernment meet up opportunities until 2014.
Wonder how many more bags of cash we’ll have
extortedgiven to the Afghani government and how many they will have solicited from their other neighbors.One year surge my fucking hindquarters….
srv
Sending M1’s to Afghanistan. Obviously, a great tool for COIN.
scuse me, but I thought all the bad guys were INSIDE Kandahar. We’re going to use tanks to clear the villages out?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/19/afghanistan.tanks/?hpt=T2
fucen tarmal
@El Cid:
get my kid a job in one one of the agencies so overrun by corporate interests, he will have all of his work done, policies provided, free of charge, by the corporate interests and couldn’t possibly screw it up, for our(their) side.
WyldPirate
@Oscar Leroy:
What the hell is wrong with you, Oscar Leroy?
Don’t you know that President
Black Jesus Hopey ChangeyObama campaigned on escalating in Afghanistan? Fuck, he had to put on his man pants and show real Merkins he had big cajones.I’m mean hell, who wants to pay any goddamned attention to the 2500 years of recorded history of the success of foreign armies in Afghanistan?
jeffreyw
In other news…
chopper
@”Fair and Balanced” Dave:
we had to destroy the village to save the village’s faith in local gubbermint!
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
i think it’s about zero.
now, if only obama had used the bully pulpit, afghanis wouldn’t need to replace their bombed-out livestock, as imaginary magical ponies are impervious to everything.
Omnes Omnibus
@Oscar Leroy: I am going to go with zero as my answer.
Noonan
Where the horrors of war meets detached bureaucratic language. What a fantastic bit of writing.
Dennis SGMM
If memory serves, the phrase “collateral damage” was coined during my war: Vietnam. And what a gift that was. No longer did we have “Guernica,” or men, women and children pounded into a grotesque stratum on the place where they lived and breathed – we had “collateral damage”; sterile, forgettable, inconsequential.
There is no God.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@NonyNony: Maybe you and@Danshould try reading the article before you comment on it. A brief summary of it would be “W’re finally using tanks in Afghanistan– about @$%#%$ time, too!”
The excerpt is from the last four paragraphs, after the article dwells on how escalated violence is just the sort of tough love these terrorist-loving ragheads deserve– plus, it’s working! It’s not there to send any message; it’s the ritual “let’s be fair and balanced by showing that not everyone is happy” disclaimer that the Ombudsman can point to, if questioned.
If this is really such a wonderful idea, maybe we could send drone bombers to houses and apartments in low-turnout precincts on Election Day. Wouldn’t that be a great way to get people to connect with our government?
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
The problem with the arguments here justifying the surge—which results in more of the shit described in the Kaplan Daily article–is that they are even more fucking asinine than what Oscar Leroy said re: the Obot apologists here.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: To what arguments justifying the surge are you referring?
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
The “Obama campaigned on it. Were you not paying attention and why did you vote of him if you did so STFU and don’t criticize the policy” arguments.
General Stuck
OT
Wingnut goes to prison, comes out Buddhist Hippie
How cool is that! Though if I was the Dalai Lama, I’d keep an eye on the cookie jar.
Aside from a certain baby jeevus hissy fit, this is good news for John McCain.
Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: I think you misinterpret that argument. It is not saying that intensifying operations in Afghanistan is a good thing; it is simply saying that no one should be surprised that Obama is doing it since he campaigned on it. It is an answer to those who argue that Obama has turned out to be a warmonger who is continuing Bush era policies and that this is somehow a disappointing surprise. He said he was going to do it during the campaign. He also said he was going to wind down Iraq. He is doing both. He has also said that he intends to wind down Afghan operations by 2014 (IIRC). I don’t see any reason, at this point, to doubt that he will do so.
opit
‘We’ve come to give them peace.’ That 2003 NIE to Bush from 16 American Intelligence agencies saying that invading Iraq would increase ‘terrorism’ was secret for a reason…the constant one for the military wherever foreigners invade a country: Job Security !
For a comparison, imagine Hessians employed by the British ‘securing’ the USA and immune from prosecution.
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
I got that point in ht e initial arguments about Afghanistan escalation.
The point I made repeatedly when it came up was that Obama had ample opportunity to back off of the surge. His group “studied” the situation for months before he decided to surge and all indications are that there was plenty resistance to the surge amongst his senior advisors; particularly NSA Jim Jones.
Presidents don’t always have to fulfill every campaign promise. He left and had plenty of “wiggle room” in his language and with the study.
Now, we are seeing the results of the ill-informed escalation in the population whose hearts and minds we are “winning” over there, the needless deaths of our troops over a completely unsalvagable situation, and the draining of money from better uses to the tune of 6 billion per month.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
hey, at least you’re agreeing that what oscar said was asinine. methinks our children is learning.
celticdragonchick
@Ugh:
I don’t know.
It’s always fucked up when you ar trashing a home or crops or whatever. At the same time, I recall watching a documentary where the film crew was following a Spec Ops green beret team as they went and did a meet and greet with som Afghan villagers a few miles from the base camp. The Taliban watched the convoy from the hills and the greeen berets were monitoring the Taliban radio traffic. The way back was laced with scores of newly placed traps and IED’s that slowed the convoy down so much that they would have to stay out overnight. The hill they elected to set up on had 5 IED’s on it. They found and disarmed 4. The last one killed one of the camera crew and wounded a bunch of other people.
After that, I started to understand why they might want to use those explosive mine clearing nets that blow up everything for one hundred yards or so. 5 IEDS on one small hill counts as a minefield in my book. We know from experienc that the Taliban have no compunction about doing the same thing in crop fields and villages, especially since the US will be blamed for any consequences in dealing with trying to get rid of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: Okay, if you are saying all options in Afghanistan are fucked up and we should be looking for the first convenient exit door, I am with you.
ETA: I am with you on that one point. I still do not agree with your characterization of the discussions here on BJ.
celticdragonchick
@WyldPirate:
Your schtick is getting old.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
now you’re moving the goalposts.
Svensker
@celticdragonchick:
It wouldn’t be an issue if we weren’t there in the first place.
It’s like the movie War Games — the only way to win is not to play the game.
celticdragonchick
@El Cid:
Don’t forget the part where the guests are shooting Kalashnikovs in the air as part of the celebration.
Never a good idea in any part of the world, and certainly not in an active war zone where massed gunfire can be misconstrued rather badly…
Dennis SGMM
How in the name of fuck-all are we going to foster a government that’s responsive to the needs of the people of a complex nation like Afghanistan when we don’t seem to be able to do so here?
A Duck
Celticdragonchick: Yes, we get it: Kill ’em all, God will know his own. No wonder the US Military sucks balls at counterinsurgency operations.
celticdragonchick
@Svensker:
Uh, after 9/11 that was impossible. The Taliban were merged with AQ as to be operationally indistinguishable and had been party to an overt act of war against us. After a decade of increasing provocations and cruise missile retaliations, they went all the way and guarenteed we would hit back as hard as we could.
What happened afterwards I find utterly inexplicable. We had won. The Taliban were in shreds and operationally dead throughout the country. They were universally hated by the population because of the terror they had induced during their rule.
And…we said “Fuck it!” and had our awesome adventure in Iraq. We left them alone to gain strength and more weapons and then return to do what they love in their four decade old non stop guerilla war.
So I agree we shouldn’t be there now, but that is because I believe we should have finished it 7 years ago when the Taliban were down for the count and we had the support of the population. We had a wide open window to flood the country with civilian aid while continuing combat ops. We could have made a real difference with a new Marshall Plan.
That is now counter historical speculation and we will never know.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Duck: While CDC is perfectly capable of defending herself, I do want to say that this comment of yours a particularly egregious example of misreading someone’s writing. I presume it was intentional. It was, right?
celticdragonchick
@A Duck:
Where in the hell did you get that idea? Mine clearing explosives are not used against people. (The trailer they get towed around in is hardly meant for active combat)
Most armies historically suck at COIN becasue the metrics are radically opposed to set piece warfare and that is what armies typically train to do as the primary mission. We are getting better at it, but Spec Op green beret teams are the best really, because they leave a small operational footprint, are typically able to speak the local language, can help locals with basic medicine and have the maturity to be diplomatic when that is called for.
celticdragonchick
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks for that. I am a bit mystified by what Duck wrote.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: No problem.
The Republic of Stupidity
@El Cid:
Proof once again, that the people fighting the ‘drug wars’ have no idea whatsoever of what they’re doing…
None…
Nada…
Zero…
Zilch…
Jay in Oregon
@cleek:
+1
Corner Stone
@Violet:
If you want to use “bomb” as a metaphor then this is what we have been seeing stateside for more than three decades.
Except when the bombs get thrown here there is less govt to connect to afterward.
WyldPirate
@chopper:
No. What OL said was poking fun at the Obot apologist arguments. I agree with that and the fact that they are fucking asinine excuse making,
WyldPirate
@celticdragonchick:
I don’t give a shit what you think, Obot.
lacp
Calgacus the Pashtun: “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
WyldPirate
@chopper: @chopper:
In what way?
Look, I was all for immediate escalation in 2000-2001 when we went into Afghanistan with the express purpose of breaking up AQ and capturing OBL. I was furious when it came out that we had a brigade of the 10th Mountain Division cooling their heels at Bagram Airbase when they were bombarding OBL while he was holed up in the caves at Tora Bora.
What did we do in that situation? We paid Afghan warlords to help us set up blocking positions through the passes into Pakistan instead of using our own troops for that task. What did the warlords do? They promptly let OBL and his minions slip through.
Now all of this stuff happened under Bush and is not Obama’s fault. I’ll even give Bush and the commanders on the ground the benefit of the doubt at that early stage in that maybe they didn’t have the support assets or other capabilities to use the 10th Mountain division troops to set up blocking positions, but that’s not the real point.
The real point is that after OBL was chased out and the Taliban overthrown, we wasted the opportunity to make long-term substantive changes there and that “opportunity” had a slim chance of success in the first place.
All we are doing in Afghanistan now–and all we have been doing since 2004 at least—is making more enemies than we have anything else and propping up a corrupt, ineffectual government. We are pissing away American lives and money in a shithole that isn’t going to change. Moreover, there is an abundance of previous historical evidence–some of it quite recent–that forewarned us of what we are seeing there now.
I moved no goalposts; I thought what we were doing there was fucking stupid before I ever hear of Obama. If we were doing the same thing under another Democratic president, I would still think it was fucking stupid.
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is precisely what I’m saying.
Look, I’m not saying that all of the arguments here on BJ were of the mindless “well he campaigned on escalation, he did it, so STFU”, but there were quite a lot of those types of responses.
I don’t buy the argument that Obama should be forgiven or worse yet, not even criticized for piss-poor policies that waste money and more importantly the lives of American troops. I also have suspicions that he made the campaign promise he did–and stuck to it despite advice to the contrary (his own VP, NSA Jones and more))–for craven political purposes to deflect the “cut and run” criticism from the Rethugs both in the campaign and after taking office. I can see him making the “promise” to escalate during the campaign and leaving weasel-words in place to get out of it. He had that opportunity and didn’t take it. I think it was a stupid, craven, wasteful move on his part.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
lol. so when you said that other stuff was “even more fucking asinine than what Oscar Leroy said”, you weren’t at all saying that oscar’s bit was asinine?
jesus, you’re all doubletalk. anything to rationalize the hate.
WyldPirate
@celticdragonchick:
Yeah….How dare tthose Afghanis celebrate in a manner that they are accustomed to and that we–the US government doesn’t approve of.
I mean shit, that certainly earns you a 2000 lb laser-guided J-DAM landing in the middle of your fucking wedding reception/party. Maybe they should have consulted Dear Abby about how to hold a proper US wedding celebration.
Goddamn, you’re fucking stupid.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
see, that whole thing is moving the goalposts.
oscar says some stupid shit about ‘the regulars here’ saying the same garbage quoted in the piece.
people point out that no, no regulars here have ever said that. it’s garbage.
you start comparing what oscar said with people pointing out that obama campaigned on the surge in afghanistan.
others point out that the latter is, in reality, pointing out a fact. he campaigned on it and then did it, which shouldn’t have been a surprise since he campaigned on it.
you start saying ‘well, my real argument is that obama should have changed his mind on afghanistan and done this and that and he sucks’.
so yeah, you’re moving the goalposts.
i understand your pathological need to turn everything into ‘two minutes obama hate’ and all, but this is getting ridiculous.
Corner Stone
This is one of the more egregious anon sourcing instances where I’d really like to know if a real, official military person said this. Or if it’s just straight fiction.
celticdragonchick
@WyldPirate:
Bwahahahahahaha!
That is too fucking funny for words.
You really have problems with critical thinking, don’t you?
Large numbers of people shooting automatic weapons randomly around during a war can bring fatally negative attention. This is not a difficult concept. I feel sorry for the women and kids who had no say in it, but the men with the guns were competing for the Darwin Awards of Stupid Ways to Get Killed.
JWL
The bombings could be readily diminished if the Afghans would simply submit to the creation of strategic hamlets.
justin
Others may have it covered, but I suggest re-reading the piece. It is very subversive, he adds a lot of details that directly undermine the bullshit spit forth by U.S. officials and military officers and his depiction of Petraeus is not flattering at all. It all but says he is a war-monger with a knack for public relations.
The reporter wrote a pretty fine book on our Iraq invasion a few years ago.
Maody
@El Cid: at 35, all but the Pottery Barn. [late to answer, had a date with the Habitat store and goodwill.]
Jeffro
Cantor, Boehner, McConnell: all King Contrary Men?
celticdragonchick
@JWL:
I don’t think anybody wants that bad idea back again.
Acharn
@El Cid:
No, our intrepid bird-men blow up funeral processions, too. They don’t care because in both cases there are men carrying rifles.
ghostcommander
Considering the idiocy behind these statements by the military and even the MSM, maybe we should encourage them to defect to Al Qaeda,the Taliban, or other supposedly Jihadists–that would certainly destroy their organizations