looks like it’s going to be another, “BS show” on how the tailban arent really supported by the afgans, or made up of the afgans, and must be defeated at all cost, while neglecting the fact we are occupying their country, the reagion is ruled by tribe elders(some including the tailban) not this weak equally corrupt government that the only reason in power is because it’s backed by the West. Another show on pushing for more troops and staying the course.

Along with we must stay to spread democracy and human rights and a free society like the ours neglecting the fact ours is run by corrupt corporations and lobbyist.

Anyone from these think tank and PAC’s are and will be pushers for War with no end, no matter what the cost and will use whatever reasoning to do so, be it fear, Human RIghts,(disregarding the fact of all the people displayed, civilians killed, maimed in doing so)

Gen. McChrystal doesn’t seem like a very good general if he can’t manage 10k of Taliban with 60k of US troops. Six times as many!

Not to mention full air superiority, drones, armor and no vegetation obscuring remote strikes.

What kind of “general” whines about needing 40k more troops with the odds already so skewed in his favor? There are plenty of strategic options that don’t require troops on every muddy street corner.

I’m sorry, but I feel McChrystal should resign (as he has threatened) given his disgraceful performance and insubordinate remarks to the media.

How many schools has McChrystal built in Afghanistan? How many has he destroyed?

New America, Center of, American Enterprise, are the same type of lobbyist or are buying congress in foreign policies, for corporate defense and contractors profits. Lets not forget the U.S. government started outsourcing Drone attacks and CIA work to Blackwater aka Xe Service who are still not subject to UCMJ or local laws. literally working with immunity at massive cost to the tax payer. Dont forget its cost 400 dollars a gallon as well to fuel our vehicles there. around 1 billon dollars per each 1000 troops,

“Last year, the price of gasoline in the United States topped the $4 per gallon mark.

This year in Afghanistan, the price has topped $400.

The stunning revelation emerged Thursday in a report from the Pentagon to House officials. The information conveyed offers new insight into a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, which found that the US spends $1 million per year for each service member on the ground in Afghanistan”

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/us-pays-400-per-gallon-for-gas-in-afghanistan/

this will jump even more once speculators start back up on bidding up oil(thanks in advance to goldman S)

The funny thing about these types of shows is that there is no counter-argument or any expert to express the views on the other side, thus giving listers a purely one-sided perspective that paints the whole Afghan or Pakistan society as terrorists or sympathizers. Even one can see the bais in “Taliban rising and fighting” like they are rising and fighting for nothing. History has shown many examples where people were subjected to brutal occupations and they stood up, with little resources, to fight back. So, what makes Afghanistan unique in this if they choose to rise and fight?

Who cares. Afghanistan is their country and USA is ours.

If we really are looking for a solution, let’s look at why we are not looking at why/how WTC #7 has collapsed on 9/11 – then the problem will solve itself.

Folks, the investigation/cover-up is enabled by one person: Shyam Sunder, of NIST, a political appointee by Bush, still in charge of the cover up.

One person, just one person is denying facts and peace to all of us.

Garth Brooks is actually ayliL.

We have witnessed one more time, what a Kind Person and Gentleman Tom Ashbrook is at Boston Book Festival. He is one of a Kind. The producers and other staff of WBUR are also wonderful people, working really hard and doing their best.

We hope to work together and solve the Afghanistan and Iraq problem. Everybody has the same goal, but WBUR does not know what to do, because they are contstrained by the big donors with political agendas.

Rule of thumb:

If somebody is willing to die for a cause (ie. suicide missions), whatever that cause is… if you do not honor that cause and especially you fight against it, you multiply the number of people who are more willing to die for the same cause.

They have nothing to lose, and you have more and more to lose. Guess who will lose at the end???

We need wars to maintain our control of 90% of the world resources, while representing only more or less 10% of the world population!
All those wars and conflicts, some by proxy are just that: the control of world resources.

The media and the so-called experts are insulting our intelligence with their platitudes about democracy, freedom, western values(!?!?),terrorism,and the rest of all those false pretenses.Beside being a strategic footprint in that part of the world,Afghanistan seems to have gaz, minerals and of course a lot of drug.

Michael has made a lot of good points, the media is keeping us looking the other way with their manufactured analysis and rehearsed talking points. while the pillage continues.

The misinformed citizenry on the street( in their fuel guzzling cars) is asking with outrage: Why, why they hate us???!!!

The only argument I’ve ever heard for being there is that they may harbor angry muslims who wish us harm. I believe France, Somalia, and the Netherlands also match that criteria. We don’t belong there, and even if we did we can’t afford to be there. Our country is crumbling. Focus on our own problems and true self defense. If Afghanis truly hate the Taliban, it will take care of itself. Let all people in all corners of the world live their own lives and figure it out for themselves. We’ll all be better off.

Since it’s so hard to get supplies into the mountains where the Talibans thrive, isn’t there a way of interdicting their arms and ammunition?

It seems that any Afghan who is “pragmatic” has left Afghanistan long ago. If military victory is possible, given the global threat of terrorism, the whole world should be doing this. The real threat is that people want to hurt American citizens, and I think we are adding to the ranks of such with every drone attack, every stumble. You can’t build a fence to keep out ill-wishers, and to reduce their number is an effort the military should not be tasked with.
If we really wanted to “decapitate” al-kaida, I believe Bush and his regime could have done it. Bin Laden was the problem, plus his group.
Now our ill-wishers have a whole other playbook. I don’t think revenge for 3,000 American lives was ever a good motive, but getting a handle on why still eludes our grasp.

This Afghanistan mess is American imperialism at its worst. It’s destined to fail, because there’s no such thing as “winning” an unjust war.

Your guest says the tailban is losing greatly, failing to do there task, no support, yet says were doing so good we need 40k troops, mission failure if not. Some massive double talk here.

These people have proves my point, as long as obama has right leaning generals in charge we will still be there, on top on that getting out of Afghanistan i would bet the house that there would be a media blitz against it like we have had in the last few days. And our citizens will fall for it hook, line and sinker. It seems your guest cannot understand the cost and failures in staying in Afghanistan and still pushing for 40k troops. Next year there be a push for 20 to 40k more and the year after a another 10 to 20k troops plus contractors with each wave.

fear, pride, fear, pride, human rights, fear, pride will and has been the cycle for our F.P
Sad On-point finds it hard to give a full view on foreign affairs.

obama is like JFK was in 1962. It’s time to leave before we loose anymore of our people.

Culture change… Isn’t this the premise? I think to how long it takes for a corporation to change… and people expect that a society will change it’s entire views and direction in under a decade? How long did it take people in America to move ahead on minority and gay rights…. we haven’t yet, have we. We’ve progressed but aren’t past it. Now put that into a non-educated, fear driven and a poverished society and how can it be achieved quickly.

As far as the leaving country we don’t belong. We shouldn’t be in the nation building business…. but we are. So now what, finish the job. Leaving just creates a breeding ground for hate, lawlessness and another place with impoverished people with no chance for a future.

Taliban vs. China? Difference is we work with China while they’re bad on human rights they are at the table and we move on together.

I cannot believe that the last caller to the program this hour actually said we should be striving for reconciliation with Ohsama Binladen and others in Afghanistan.

The idea of reconciliation with mass murderers is so over the top it makes me sick. Can we please THINK about what we’re saying — and what we’re wishing for?

I think it was Peter Bergen saying it had been a mistake for American leaders to tell us that our objective in Afghanistan was bin Laden and al Kaida. No kidding! I heard him say that we have a moral responsibility now that we’ve overthrown their (Taliban Mullah Omar) government — wait, before we went in, we had not yet overthrown said government.
I heard him say we have an interest in regional stability. Right, also in southwest Australia and Antarctica.
I heard him say we have concern about Pakistan soon to be fifth in terms of population worldwide, and armed (not then but now) with nuclear weapons.
What it shakes down to is we want military bases in the region, I think, and bin Laden was an excellent excuse — perhaps the reason Bush was vacationing in Texas at the time yours truly was reading in the newspaper that Bin Laden was planning to attack inside the United States.
So we have created our own set of problems.
What I have to go to foreignpolicy.com to find out is this: Who exactly are the “pragmatic” Taliban Berger cites. He says there is a great conflict within the Taliban between those who will never reconcile, who want to attack Western interests anywhere, non-Islamic interests anywhere, and those who want to participate in a stable Afghan government.
Did he say where exactly those pragmatists are? Did he name names? He says he leaves it to the military to develop strategy. (Or was it the other guest.) But it seems to be diplomacy that is at the heart of this, diplomacy to the Nth degree.

We are invading another country. We shouldn’t back up the corrupt Afghanistan government. If we so care about human rights, why we cause so many civilians be killed. Also, if somebody is fight and willing to die for a cause (i.e. suicide missions), when you kill them, you only multiply the number of people who hate you. What is “for the interests of our country” exactly means? Do we need wars to maintain our control of the world resources, Should we? We should defend our country from our boarder. This Afghanistan war is an unjust war. I don’t know how good our freedom is. It seems that it only goes so far that so I could post a comment here.

I’d like to ask Michael Semple – who is for some kind of reconciliation with Taliban – whether he’d have the same approach towards Serbian war criminals.
Same question for the last caller who said she wanted to negotiate with Osama Bin Laden.

I bet these same people, five years from now, will go to the Kendall cinema to watch and admire movies like “Hotel Kandahar” and “Helmand Now” and shed tears and bleed their hearts on why America didn’t do enough to stop atrocities depicted in these movies, while ignoring the sick, evil and regressive ideology of radical Wahhabi Islam which makes Talibanis throw acid on faces of young girls for the crime of going to a school.

Millard-Fillmore, what do you think of the 5 million who have died in the civil war in the Congo, not to mention those raped as a war tactic? I believe I have that figure right. Hillary Clinton visited there a few months back to make clear our concern. Or for another example, the huge numbers in crowded Bangladesh who are being threatened in house and home each monsoon season due to global warming. Technology makes it possible to get warnings by cell phone app as to how high the waters are likely to go, but technology is causing the waters to be more dangerous each year. I don’t know the counts.
The bleeding hearts are going to need lots of infusions this coming century. To focus on one set of problems is to take the eye off the ball, as they say, in another location. I am super cautious about having my emotions directed (like a movie, as this hour made clear — the Taliban are using their efforts as visual propaganda, as ad hoc movie production for international persuasion, quite against their religious principles of making no graven image of humans).
I can be manipulated, but I recognize the manipulation.

Iraq was a Bush family attempt to keep and maintain control of oil and gas investments for US Corporations.
Result- 5000 Americans dead.
Afghanistan is a non issue. Human rights and democracy
do not exist in this part of the world. USA has no reason to be there. Taliban is a religious issue.
Overt counter-terrorism tactics will never be successful.
The US has yet to learn to fight fire with fire.
The Al-queda and Taliban are more afraid of the enemy they cant see.

“I bet these same people, five years from now, will go to the Kendall cinema to watch and admire movies like “Hotel Kandahar” and “Helmand Now” and shed tears and bleed their hearts on why America didn’t do enough to stop atrocities depicted in these movies, while ignoring the sick, evil and regressive ideology of radical Wahhabi Islam which makes Talibanis throw acid on faces of young girls for the crime of going to a school.
Posted by millard-fillmore, on October 26th, 2009 at 12:13 pm EDT”

Ellen beware the xenophobic hypocrite crying about Human rights in Islam who promotes such thinking as Geert Wilders you can see such admiration of such in the war crimes post, and europe and muslim post as well.

Such sayings as Wilders speaking admiringly of Israel’s administrative detention program, and talks about how he would in effect create a Dutch Guantanamo for some Muslims. or Wilders states that the Netherlands should leave the European Union if Turkey, a Muslim majority country, is admitted to the EU.

or such Geert Wilders proposed to tax women who wear the Muslim headscarf. Any Muslim woman who wants to wear a headscarf would have to apply for a licence, and pay a yearly 1000 euros for the privilege. Wilders says the money raised would go toward women’s emancipation programmed

TV Producer Harry de Winter, President of the board of the foundation Een Ander Joods Geluid [Another Jewish Voice], today placed a remarkable advertisement on the front page of the newspaper Volkskrant. De Winter puts Geert Wilders’s criticism of Muslims in the same category as anti-Semitism…

What is your message?

[De Winter:] “We Jews know better than anyone else what this sort of discrimination can lead to. Wilders claims that the Muslims must be dealt with and that the Koran is a fascist book. That’s how the persecution of Jews once started, by generalization. Therefore, it is time for a sharper criticism from the Jewish community. If you say the same thing about the Jews or Israel, you are considered an anti-Semite and ostracized. It is good that this feeling of justice is so strong, but, for me, there is no difference between the yarmulke and the headscarf.” The ad reads:

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/geert-wilders-racist-or-not

http://makkah.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/geert-wilders-polarizing-dutch-society-against-islam-and-muslims/

Gee, I guess during WWII when faced with kamikaze attacks, we were not smart enough to know we cannot fight and win against people who, for their cause, are willing to suicide attack us. Thank goodness the greatest generation are not too bright.

Hello all -

The show tonight with Berger and Semple is fine, but I’m SO SO tired of listening to a bunch of westerners pontificating about military strategy. I sense a norther Irish accent to that Semple guest. Like we should even be listening to the British about counter – insurgency. What with all their dirty tricks and assassination in Ireland. Enough militarization of every answer. How about actually listening, interviewing a real life Afghan. No, not in terms of “tell us how hard your life is,” but asking them questions about what THEY want to see happen, not what some western pundits think. Surely an afghan grandmother would know more about the solution than any CNN or NPR so-called security expert. I mean, I know this is dreadful to say, but we have to stop being an imperial power, and as long as we are one, I have to hope that we fail.

Bill Sze your comment is completly out of context to the subject as well as being wrong as it relates to history. Japanese solders for the most part fought to the death as this was part of the belief system and honor code. A of the warrior or Samurai which has been part of the Japanese culture for centuries. I think when dealing with complex issues it’s best not to over simplify and break things down into cliches.

The kamikaze pilots were the act of a desperate military fighting a doomed cause in a war they were losing.

Maybe one should read some history on WW2 as it is not so black and white. Especially the years leading up to 1941.

Japan had invaded Manchuria in the 1931 and was at war with Chine by 37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War

Hitler was in power since 33, and Mussolini was since 1922.

The greatest generation was not so great in 1939 and the nation was very much in isolation to any involvement with what was then considered European and Asian wars.
It’s interesting to note that the Republican party fought FDR on almost all fronts in getting involved in the fight against Hitler and Mussolini. He had to do some very interesting things just to get supplies and arms to the British before and after Dunkirk.

The issue of the madrassahs and the recruitment of extremists is seminally important. While most of them are not directly linked to the Taliban, they generally have a culture of intolerance that is sympathetic to the Taliban as I have argued in my book on Pakistan’s madrassahs. Ultimately, this is a struggle for ideology which can only be resolved through reform of such ossified views about modernity that are perpetuated by these institutions.