Rent a ****** Just $680 Billion!

[Katz]

I can appreciate the sentiment that paying them off is less expensive, time consuming, life consuming and aggravating than waging the war.  But it continues a horrible precedent started in Iraq (probably, long before then).  If America is hated for our wealth, what better way to destroy us than holding our soldiers and/or security for ransom?  Much the same way a child will scream in a store until the parent gives in and buys the toy.  If the parent does so, the child knows it will most likely work again and again.

The idiocy of this notion is that we'll STILL be waging the war!  The Afghans must love the way they can now burn our candle from both ends.  It won't be long before some American nutjobs figure out the best way to get their bills paid off is to start planting IED's in the Malls, Banks, Strip Centers and Stadiums of our own country.

Bailouts are just bad policy.  Especially when it doesn't include you and me. 

Just pay them for a hundred years and hopefully they'll be christian speaking americans by then. Let them know the contract will expire in 100 years, like the lease of Hong Kong, and encourage them to get back on their two feet before 2110. Anything else its their fault.

Besides, most likely it will be China/Saudi Arabia paying the bill so who cares.

[yellowrocker]

can anyone even tell me WHAT Aghanistan is even about anymore?
Robert

Wow. Deja vu all over again. This sounds so much like 1968 - Vietnam and Nixon.

Quote from wiki:

In the 1968 Presidential campaign, Richard Nixon stated that "new leadership will end the war" in Vietnam. He never used the phrase "secret plan", which originated with a reporter looking for a lead to a story summarizing the Republican candidate's (hazy) promise to end the war without losing.

According to one historian: "...it became obvious in 1969 that Nixon's 'secret plan' to end the war was a campaign gimmick..."

Nixon told Michigan Republican congressman Donald Riegle that the war would be over within six months of his assumption of office.

Also interesting was the media shift:

...as the White House gradually pulled troops from Vietnam, the media shifted from the destruction of Vietnam—even while the U.S. air war and coordinated ground assaults in Southeast Asia persisted at a very high rate of killing.

The executive producer of the ABC evening news, Av Westin, wrote a memo in March 1969 that stated:

"I have asked our Vietnam staff to alter the focus of their coverage from combat pieces to interpretive ones, pegged to the eventual pull-out of the American forces. This point should be stressed for all hands."

And Westin telexed the ABC network's Saigon bureau:

"I think the time has come to shift some of our focus from the battlefield, or more specifically American military involvement with the enemy, to themes and stories under the general heading 'We Are on Our Way Out of Vietnam."

Good times are worth repeating?

[gin]

so we pay the Taliban 1.3b per year just to appease them or
so they stay happy and won't shut down dope production
which supports the world wide drug trade of heroine/opium..

more and more confirming my original doubts of the
real reason we chose to invade Afghanistan after 9/11      

[cabacaba]

so we pay the Taliban 1.3b per year just to appease them or
so they stay happy and won't shut down dope production
which supports the world wide drug trade of heroine/opium..

more and more confirming my original doubts of the
real reason we chose to invade Afghanistan after 9/11      

This sums it up.. I would offer the Taliban a percentage of the take...  Afghanistan is not a "country" it is a collection of various tribes that have been fighting among themselves for centuries. The Taliban is a collection of hill people and goat herders. For these kind of people to threaten the world is a bit of a stretch. They are being funded and paid by, my guess, western bankers to divert attention while the bankers loot the World...

No need to apologize ArmaGoof, I think most of us understand. If it was my kid, I think I would shoot him in the foot. Fortunately, my kid retired as a Lt.C. from the Army in 02. He knew what was coming... 

This forum classy?? From what I have seen of the vile language used, I don't think so... But, it is very interesting and I knew that from watching  it a long time.. I just ignore the nastiness, which I attribute to scared folks, who have figured out that we really are in Doom Times.

 

[paland]

The Taliban will copy the N. Koreans, take the money, buy more sophisticated arms and continue to kill Americans at an accelerated pace. We will never learn, these folks cannot be bought, unlike us!

Damn!! I can't believe that I am agreeing with alaskat!

I think the world just ended!

[haniel]

What's the problem? 

Currently the Taliban are working for the competition.  An acceptable business practice is to hire away the top performers thereby improving your productivity and impacting the competitor. 

Stop thinking about politics.  It's all about business.  The troops deployed to Afghanistan know full well they are there to ensure the opium flows to the west.  They know America went in when the Taliban had reduced the flow to a trickle.  Oil.  Opium.  It's all the same.  Corporations and government working together in harmony.  The only thing needed to complete the classical fascist model is a 'glorious leader' around which a cult of personality can be built.   

Long live the memory of the republic.

[J.A.F.O.]

Stop thinking about politics.  It's all about business.  The troops deployed to Afghanistan know full well they are there to ensure the opium flows to the west.  They know America went in when the Taliban had reduced the flow to a trickle.  Oil.  Opium.  It's all the same.  Corporations and government working together in harmony.  The only thing needed to complete the classical fascist model is a 'glorious leader' around which a cult of personality can be built.   

+10   Spot on..

[RMG]

can anyone even tell me WHAT Aghanistan is even about anymore?

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING THERE? What is the plan what is the exit strategy, what is the OCCUPATION stategy if that is our goal. What the hell are those kids dying for.

We just replaced IRAQ with AFGHANISTAN soon to be followed by Pakistan.

I seriously hope the Obama supporters who RAILED against Bush about Iraq are paying close attention here. THERE IS NO CHANGE. Obama will expand Afghanistan and get us into Pakistan and bribe Iraq into being quiet while we pull out and another Saddam is put into place over there.

Robert

Actually Afghanistan was replaced by Iraq which in turn was replaced by Afghanistan which in turn.......you get the picture. After the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan (after the Russians pulled out) it only left 2 major players, the Pakistanis and the Saudis and we can thank both of them for the rise of the Taliban because the Taliban wouldn't have got anywhere near where they got to without Pakistan and Saudi Arabia aid and military help. Talibani have been around for a few hundred years but their ascent as a cohesive entity in the 90's was nothing short of breathtaking. The ball was dropped - period. There will not be any remedy in Afghanistan without Taliban participation. Personally I don't think there will be a remedy at all - this is the one theatre for which I only have pessimism.

Which just lost our 133rd soldier yesterday and I can't tell you how pissed I am that this mission really has no set definition. Having said this, the Afghans will have to work it out for themselves eventually, how much more loss of life are they willing to endure? How much are we? Gawd dammit, so much of this could have been avoided with proper care and concern 16 - 19 years ago.