Any views Galbraith would offer on India’s role or Pakistan’s in Afghanistan? Any differentiation among Taliban east, west, north, south? China’s, Russia’s?
He says “complicated.” Maybe another venue for that.

This is a great show Tom. I’m having a tough time multitasking to write this but I have to say, I’m glued to my radio, Peter is entirely credible and you’re doing a great job running the show.

Galbraith keeps referring to “the Afghan people.” Isn’t part of the problem in Afghanistan that there is no “Afghan people,” there is no national identity? Are “the people” just some groups in Kabul?

I interviewed Peter Galbraith in 2006 about his book The End of Iraq for my radio show, Writers Voice. I found him thoughtful and credible, although his predictions (that Iraq would be ungovernable as a united Shia-Sunni-Kurd state) are yet to be proven. What WAS clear was that he was sincerely concerned with the real needs and interests of the civilians of Iraq — and his current principled stand also seems to stem from his integrity about and concern for the real needs of the Afghan people. He is a credit to the diplomatic profession.

Wow, OnPoint’s Booking department is impressive. Peter Galbraith was fired (or liberated?) yesterday and he is on OnPoint today. Hats off to OnPoint Producers.

While we are celebrating just another 1 hour show about Afghanistan (show #247 on the same topic), isn’t it time to look at the reason and the event that made us Invade Afghanistan without a second thought. If Russians went to Afghanistan as drunks, we flew to and invaded Afghanistan like headless angry chickens without any brains.

San Francisco Architect, Richard Gage, is going to WBUR’s backyard next week. Isn’t it time to look at what he has to say about the event that got us into this endless state of war. Are we really really afraid of learning something that we did not know before?

Please OnPoint, please show us your Leadership!!!

City/State: Portsmouth, NH
Date: Fri, Oct 9, 2009
Time: 8:00 PM
Topic: 9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction
Speaker: Richard Gage, AIA
Venue: South Church, Unitarian Universalist
Location: 292 State Street
Event: Contact: Dr. William Woodard
swampgreenfrog@yahoo.com
(603) 866-3254
——————————————————————————–
Speaking Engagement: Northampton, MA
9/11: Blueprint for Truth The Architecture of Destruction
Richard Gage, AIA
Sat, Oct 10, 2009 • 7:00 PM
First Churches of Northampton
City/State: Northampton, MA
Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009
Time: 7:00 PM
Topic: 9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction
Speaker: Richard Gage, AIA
Venue: First Churches of Northampton
Location: 129 Main St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Event: Contact: David Caputo
positronicdave@gmail.com
(800) 472-3765
——————————————————————————–
Speaking Engagement: Cambridge, MA
9/11: Blueprint for Truth The Architecture of Destruction
Richard Gage, AIA
Sun, Oct 11, 2009 • 5:00 PM
First Parish of Cambridge
City/State: Cambridge, MA
Date: Sun, Oct 11, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM
Topic: 9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction
Speaker: Richard Gage, AIA
Venue: First Parish of Cambridge
Location: 3 Church Street – Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02138
Event: Contact: Lenny Mather
gitcheegumee@earthlink.net
(857) 523-9606

The U.S. simply needs to stop playing “Let’s Build an Empire” games with other people’s land and lives.

Dear Deputy Special Representative Galbaith:

Picking up on your reply to the “nice idea” about having American volunteers go arm-in-arm with Afghans to the polls, I would like to point out that such self-sacrificing individuals would likely also go with the provision that there would be no negotiations if they were to be kidnapped. If this was clearly stated as a principle, it would highlight the self-sacrificing nature of their volunteerism, and relive the military of the need to divert resources in such events.

Sincerely,
Bruce McHenry

Hi Tom,

Congratulations on a great and relevant show.

I watched the 60 Minutes interview with General McCrystal–who seems to be saying he needs more troops. He also conveyed an approach of protecting the Afgan people–as opposed to going after the Taliban. The troops are needed until Afganistan can provide their own. His approach seems incredibly thoughtful and he’s the guy most directly responsible for the safety of our troops. How can Peter not support his request?

Ron

If the UN “recalls” someone who opposes US troop buildup, I’d say the handwriting is on the wall; certain preliminary personnel arrangements are being set in place to support more troops.
Second piece of this “handwriting” would be high level talk that filtered through to me, anyway, that consistency (long-term foreign involvement?) needs to be part of the picture. Taliban (or their backers) can’t be figuring: “Lay low till this wave or surge is over. The Americans can be waited out.”
I think McChrystal was the one somehow eddying that perspective to me. Maybe not. He did foreshadow Galbraith (who spoke about Americans being sitting ducks — my phrase — for kidnapping) in stressing that the job itself is not the military part; the military part is to provide protection/security while the job itself is accomplished (nation building? — or simply paying the Taliban who are in it for the money — $8 a day — to switch sides to support Karzai — ahem — essentially).
Under it all, this is just one corner of the world where anti-American terrorists are coagulating. I wonder if Vice President Biden has a pragmatic approach to that underlying problem.

Facts:

a) Why are we in Afghanistan?
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
Do you see any hint of Afghanistan or 9/11?
ps. this is not my .org website, it is the FBI (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations) .gov

b) General McChrystal is a totally corrupt individual. Please read more about Pat Tillman case; ask her Mother. McChrystal personally ordered to have Tillman’s uniform be burned.

c) Unfortunately Obama was put in a position to defend the recent elections and the Corrupt government in Afghanistan.

d) Obama is surrounded by seven War Hawks, from Hillary to Halbrook, during the Strategy Meeting.

e) We are broke!!! Invasion and the related costs regarding Afghanistan is costing us close to $200,000,000,000 per year [$200 Billion]

f) When you criticize a policy and challange lies/corruption with truth, you get Fired – ie. Peter Galbraith. This is a dead end street.

Enough is Enough!!!

Do we really need another show about Afghanistan? Please widen the scope, Tom!

Isn’t it strange? OnPoint had programs about Afghanistan (and Iraq) from every single possible angle.

They had guest Talking Points, Authors, Generals and Special Interests who actually do make money from our beloved Department of Offense occupying countries that has not done anything to us.

How about the Peace Activists? Thousands of them. Millions of Them. They were out there marching, in cold and rain while the (repeat) Guests of this show were barely getting up from bed and enjoying their coffee and sunday paper in their cozy atriums in their affluent homes.

The Peace Activists are being treated like the Untouchables by NPR. Shame on you WBUR. Bring another angle. Invite people who has the right and wisdom and integrity to say “We Told You So”.

Enough is Enough!!!

In terms of “objectives” in sending troops to Afghanistan: on the one hand, they seem vague; one the other, there is ostensibly a thrust to want to unify the government and ‘win the hearts and minds of its people’ (whatever that is supposed to mean). To the latter: Afghanistan has a corrupt government, and it has been a tribal nation for well over a thousand years. To the former: why send in our troops without a clear objective? Either way, we need to get our military troops out!

Ellen Dibble made an astute point in saying the UN “recall” of Galbraith indicates the ‘handwriting is on the wall’ for supporting a build up of troops.

Please, can somebody tell me!

Aren’t the talibans part of the afghan people????

It always amazes me how people has got accustomed to the fact of occupying other people lands,changing their rulers, killing some and massacring their populations, all in the name of “democracy” and US interest.

When did corporate profiteerings have become US interest?

wavre,

i’m also suprised by this as well when there refering to the taliban, the line always goes the afgans dont support anything the taliban does unless under fear, could not that been said about the U.S. as well? Than there talk about who the tailban is recuiting more afgans yets can’t understand why.

pretty sure if another country invaded the U.S. anyone found working with them would be put to death.

its all about the money anything else thats said “freedom” “democracy” is a cover

I really do not know why Obama is making this war, his war (and by extension, America’s war). I understand it was already started, that there are a lot of awful things happening there and that it may be a training ground for terrorists. The latter two conditions are reasons for invading a few dozen other countries.

But he had a chance to claim it was started by someone else, that he was smarter and would not get stuck in this quagmire. Does he not know the history of this place? Does he not know how much debt we’ve built up recently?

I wonder if president’s get into such a bubble that they forget that a billion dollars we spend on this stuff has to come from us.

I beg you guys… let’s look at the Events of 9/11

Specifically why and how World Trade Center Building #7 has collapsed. Nothing else. We don’t care about who did it and why they did it.

The Arfhanistan issue will be solved in a heartbeat. Complete military pull-out in less than a week after a formal apology by U.S. Government to Afghani poeple.

The answer is so obvious and so apparent.

The fact is that whoever takes a clean look at the matter “gets it”. But unfortunately the majority is so braindead and/or brainwashed by the tragic images/media, they keep refusing to look at the evidence.

ps. I was one of the non-believers for seven years.

Listen to Fresh Air for today with Terry Gross. She interviews the Pakistani journalist — I think his name is Rashid. He explicates the relation of the Taliban to al Kaida, and the relation between Taliban groups. I believe he said that al Kaida outsources to the Taliban (as well as to other sort of wanna-be troublemaking organizations worldwide, since al Kaida has suffered losses). And I believe I understood him to say that the Afthan Taliban have sort of multiplied into offspring groups in other countries. He congratulated the new Pakistan government for squelching the Taliban in Swat in February, with big encouragement from Richard Holbrooke, and notes Holbrooke’s help in getting aid to the farmers and their families displaced at high season from their fields (millions, I believe).
But the journalist says the Taliban spinoffs, worldwide, are watching to see if the sort of lead group in Afghanistan can hold firm.
That is a domino theory if I ever heard one. Anyone my age knows “domino theory” evokes the Vietnam debacle. Maybe, maybe not. If only Iran was an ally.
Help me out on the journalist’s name. I ought to be working.

Ellen Debble

That journalist from Pakistan has always been the freelance source for NPR for years. Don’t know his ideology, and don’t care. He must be saying stuff that is harmless for the Media.

Holbrook’s Job is micro-manage the Loyalty Tree in Afghanistan as long as possible in exchange with US Taxpayers money…ie. bribing and further corrupting that Country. The end game is not his concern.

All they want is the have US Military Presence on both sides of Iran, until WE Do IRAN. In the meantime, defense contrators and supporting staff and weapons dealers and the Media is getting the “spoils” of a war….AT OUR AND AFGHANI EXPENSE!

Felipe, ya lone Knight, ya. I hope you are vindicated someday.

Please have architect Richard Gage on your show. Just because all adversaries of 911 truth confine themselves to name calling, a rigorous presentation like that of Gage is quite worthy.

Though Hamid Karzai is in very deed, a weasel rat-bastard and skunk … especially a skunk, American has successfully done business with such rodents before, however … who and what is the alternative at this present time, but a man named Abdullah Abdullah, which translated from Arabic means … Servant of Allah Servant of Allah … and where, my friends and countryman, do you think this mans allegiance lies? At the very least, we now have an ally/skunk that’s spraying (for the moment) in the other direction.

I heard Galbraith saying that Abdullah Abdullah is Tajdik (Tajik?) while Karzai is Pashtun (from the same area as the Taliban base I believe), so if Abdullah of the North is in charge (and as Galbraith pointed out very excellently, the Afghan constitution is winner-take-all, without the kind of constitutional foothold for minorities and constituencies that is in place in Iraq — which he say the United Nations is not in a position to even try to rectify — huh?) while the Taliban are centered in the south, you’d be pushing non-Taliban Afghanistan into the northeast, which I believe is where they were before 9/11, more or less.
If the UNAMA (the commission he was in, and which directed the $300 million mostly US aid to the Afghan elections) could not preempt the use of the many election sites that were never to be opened, and if they could not proffer evidence to the Afghan elections or the international elections commission to evaluate the elections (listen to The NewsHour for today, with Galbraith and a UN representative), then the UNAMA is acting as a puppet to preserve the appearance of an election, not an election, and need to reevaluate their procedures ASAP.
I think the word for what is happening to the Taliban would be “metastasized” — if what I gleaned from Fresh Air could be summarized in a word, my word. I had thought al Kaeda was metastasizing, but now I hear Taliban are too.
My skepticism does kick in, dianna g.

Ellen,

it was reported in the bbc media and European media that when richard H. came to the camps he would not speak to the local press only international as many of the locals where forced out after the U.S. pressured Pakistan to do more displacing 2 plus million people many blaming the U.S. for the Pakistani actions along with U.S. drone attacks that many of the local reporters wished to ask him about.

here’s the link to the Ahmed Rashid

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113378138

Sadly the U.S. news does it citizens many injustices reporting often only one side of the story or leaving out major details.

whats going to happen, and as quietly as possible is the troops from iraq will go to afgan, afgan civilian causalities will go up more afgan will side with the tailban, more drone attacks(outsourced to former blackwater company). The president of afgan will criticize NATO on civilians deaths, Nato will criticize Afgans corrupted government, while billions are wasted in the process of all this, we won’t be any safer, and contractors will profit greatly as they build and destroy the same areas.

while whatever general is in charge will keep saying we can win if only a little longer and on and on and on.

“Government ministers ordered army commanders to push fighters out of Lower Dir and Buner districts after American officials voiced their fears that the militants now posed a threat to the capital Islamabad.

Following a “peace deal” in which the government agreed to introduce Sharia law if the Taliban ended its insurgency in Swat Valley, militant fighters advanced into neighbouring Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital.

Their arrival in Buner sent a shock wave through Pakistan and Washington where Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, accused Islamabad of “abdicating to the Taliban.”

It is understood that President Zardari ordered troops to retake Swat after American military chief Admiral Mike Mullen visited Islamabad to voice Washington’s growing fears. ”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5245006/Pakistani-military-to-push-into-Swat-Valley.html

Consider this riddle if you will…

What is the end result of turning a backwards land upside-down?

Get out of there. Use whatever reason or excuse you like. Get out and never repeat the Iraq/Afghanistan mistake again. So many oppurtunities for problem solving at home, let’s not create more in lands we don’t understand filled with folks who don’t like us or want us there.

Michael, well said. And thanks for the link.
Somehow or other I did hear about the fiasco with the millions of displaced Pakistanis, and probably from the BBC as well. I have not heard any followup on that from the US press, nor anywhere since about June.
I am thinking Rashid, from Pakistan, maybe did not know enough to avoid the topic, and thought he was doing Holbrooke a favor by praising his part in it. If he reports from that area, a good word for the Holbrooke…
We sure hear enough about Clinton getting monies for global NGO-type activities. But not Holbrooke’s efforts. There were at least 2 million in great need, and when they went back to their fields, other people, who were being displaced from the ungovernable area to the south in Pakistan, where the Taliban were then removing to, were being brought to the camps, and it was suspected that Swat would be re-infiltrated once the populace returned.
I haven’t heard or read about Pakistan’s efforts on our behalf since, until today on Fresh Air, which didn’t really update that.

It took about 7 or 8 years of anti-war movements before we withdrew from Vietnam, and that was a movement largely of college-age students, college students with time and energy to spare, college students with the threat of the draft hanging over them.
I guess the advantage of a draft is that it helps guarantee that an unpopular war is not promulgated.
I cringe that we are losing treasure, losing credibility too, not making friends among those displaced citizens of Swat. That’s for sure.
Those 9/11 perpetrators were from where? Saudi Arabia? A rich country. So we should do what?

You guys don’t understand. Obama needs us.

Above postings are correct. Looking into the Events of 9/11 is the best bet. The cheapest solution for the problem.

Imagine Obama (now or in 2014) leaning towards getting out of Afghanistan, or at least reducing the numbers… one semi-terrorist Bomb somewhere in USA… then Cheney’s Smurky Disgusting Face will be on postage stamps with the caption: Strongest against Terror.

Obama just cannot do what is right. They are going to pile up on him with Security, Secutiry, Security.

The postings are right….let’s understand what the hell has happened on 9/11…… the house of lies will crumble down instantly.

“Obama just cannot do what is right. They are going to pile up on him with Security, Secutiry, Security.”

“They” certainly will. That’s his cross to carry, however. Potential political risks are just not a good excuse for not doing what’s right. Incidentally, can somebody name a politician of any stature who did what’s right despite the threat of his/her political death? Please go back as far as you wish. Whom can we name?

What Iran has done to the US to deserve all those ultimatums? Is the american, british, french,russian,India’s, pakistani…as well as Israel’s nuclear facilities opened to the UN inspections?(no!!!)The proliferation there is alive and well.

We all have the bomb, why can the Iranians??Iraq didn’t have it ,look what happened to their country and population. In the other hand North-Korea…
Let’s not forget that the only country to have use the bomb on human beings is the”civilized, moral, humanistic” USA. I believe that the ultimate goal of all those charades and postering is the Iranian’s oil reserve and the securing of the state of Israel as the strongest country in the region.
We are heading into the abyss and we will fail to secure the oil as well as Israel. You don’t need to be an “expert” to see what’s coming.
Israel long time future will be a one state where everybody has full citizen’s rights. It is sad and unfortunate that it will take a lot of useless sufferings for people to finally accept its inevitability.

Alex,

There are a few. Leonitus of Sparta, Winston Churchill never too preoccupied with his popularity. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul seem fairly sincere. Russ Feingold doesn’t seem too overly focused on self preservation.

The sad thing is that the modern American examples are all considered to exist on various political fringes, and not serious candidates for higher offices.

Peter galbraith is an icredible diplomate, He wants to help Afghans and the rest of the world, but unfortunatley he won’t be able to do it. I just want to ask one question. Why are Americans and other nations send their troops to afghansitan, saying they want to help them? If those allegations about the UN are true then the life of those soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan have been wasted for nothing and nothing. I feel very sorry for those families who have lost their loved ones.

“Why are Americans and other nations sending their troops to Afghanistan, saying they want to help them?”
Ashraf asks.
(Is this a rhetorical question? Maybe not. I’ll try an answer.)
1. Before the end of the Cold War, American hearts went out to Afghans because our enemy, the USSR, was overrunning their country.
Next thing we know, the Russians are out, the Cold War is over, and the Afghans are suffering a sort of civil war, violent unrest, with the tortured body of a leader strung up in public for instance.
Next thing we know, there is a sort of order, but it is imposed by the Taliban who cut off hands and feet in sports arenas, bomb the great Buddha statue in the desert, beat women who are trying to get education, etc., etc. In the ’90s, I wanted to become an army and eradicate those oppressive oafs.
2. In the late ’90s some of the people who had helped the USA in our efforts to get the Russians out of Afghanistan (trained and armed by the USA) had morphed into al Kaida, “The Base,” and in alliance with many recruits from among poor children trained in Saudi/Wahabi-supported/guided elementary schools in the region, the international Al Kaida was beginning to foment recognizable sorts of violence, for instance in US embassies in Africa. Americans knew about bin Laden and his roots in the Sudan and Afghanistan. Reporters were deployed to inform us.
3. 9/11. The twin towers fell. The training camps and the inspirational leader for this kind of extreme mischief came from Afghanistan. Was the Afghan government capable of controlling their own territory and expirgating these terrorists? No, the Taliban who were in control had no such intention. So the USA undertook to uproot al Kaida, targeting those camps — or so we were told.
4. We failed. We turned out military wrath elsewhere. When returning our attention to Afghanistan, the government is still incapable of getting rid of the terrorists. Can we “help” Afghans to get control? Early in this administration, the idea was that we could provide enough development in modern institutions (schools, health clinics, general economic and government institutions) that Afghans could take over, as they have in Iraq.
In short, we think “help” of even enormous scale in lives and cost will get Afghanistan to oust the al Kaida. In order to do that, Afghans will probably have to oust the Taliban.
Is this beginning to sound impossible?
Didn’t a lot of the leading Afghans actually leave Afghanistan because of the general impossibility?
What next, if not massive international “help”?