Did You Remember? This Is Going To Be The Best 9/11 Yet!

Did You Remember? This Is Going To Be The Best 9/11 Yet!

It sort of has to be. Look at what's going on in the world. There's a big money swindle in Afghanistan, Massive amounts of daily attacks in flooded, nuclear-armed Pakistan, a ground zero mosque that's getting protested and scheduled Qu'ran burnings that are off again, on again are being protested in Kabul when it was just first announced earlier in the week. Today is also Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the last day of Ramadan.

I should probably warn you ahead of time that I'm hardly tasteful when it comes to this most sacred high holiday of our nation. So if you get offended by me being curious as to if hallmark is selling cards for this annual event yet. You should probably sway away as I do think they really should get on that. It could be a major money maker. "Sorry terrorist killed your daddy. Best regards"



I'm no fun. I always tell people on 9/11 to remember the six digit death count of noncombatants in Afghanistan and Iraq. How could I not be jaded? There's school districts where parents are protesting the school because the board of education didn't go above and beyond the governor's executive order, which calls for half-mast flags and simply suggests a moment of silence.

You hear that? He simply suggested it, he didn't make it mandatory! How dare he not make it mandatory! Doesn't he know that you need to honor the sacrifice of those 3,000 people who died for America's freedom by requiring a minute of silence.

Never mind the fact that a mandatory guideline enforceable by some form of punishment sort of takes away a sense of freedom of what those people were claimed to have died for. Then again, taking away freedoms to retaliate against people who hate our freedom is nothing new.



I guess the question left unanswered is what is everyone doing for 9/11? I'm going to go down to the bar and order a 9/11. How do you make that? Well, you drop two kamikazes in a Manhattan and knock it down.

You have to admit that those terrorist that carried out the attack on 9/11 were either tactically brilliant or extremely lucky in the way they nearly destroyed the head of our military, decapitated our government, and successfully destroyed one of the headquarters of our global economic hegemony all with about 20 dudes and some box cutters.



Perhaps that sounds like I support these terrorist, and it's stupid that I have to say I don't, because who in their fucking right mind would? But you have to admit, historically speaking, they're going to be mentioned alongside the Spartans from 300. And I'm sure that just got me put on some government watch list.

To further dig myself into a hole, I should remind you that if we executed a similar attack with bombers on an enemy of the state, or for that matter an unsuspecting nation, we would consider the 3000 dead to be well within acceptable losses and our public would cheer on the destruction.

If you need examples of this, please see Iraq.



And before you get too sad about all the 3,000 victims of the tragedy you have to think, weren't most of the tenants financial firms who, at the time, were most likely creating the financial bubble that is destroying our economy? Or perhaps that when the tower came down it only left the inexperienced parasites that didn't understand not to kill the host alive to run the ship. You have to wonder what the ratio of capitalists and war mongers to working class in those buildings.

But hey, let's just ignore all the chaos they caused, not to mention that the violence we are causing around the world and let's focus on how much of a violent manuscript those towel head's have for a bible and burn it on this high holy holiday.

A Florida pastor's plan to burn Qurans at his church on Sept. 11 ignited a protest today by hundreds of Afghans, who burned American flags and shouted "Death to America," and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the preacher could be increasing the threat to his troops.

Have people who say stuff like "Have you read the Koran? They are violent!" actually read the bible? The book is filled with violence. One dude got killed for cumming on the floor and not in his dead brother's wife.

God himself drowned the entire world! How much more violent can you get? Oh, I see. It's because the Koran is making a bid and has become a converting religion and is attempting to spread itself? Yeah, Christianity doesn't want to face competition. It's not like they don't have their holy book in every god damn hotel and motel across this country.

I guess we should just see what other books we could burn. Anyone have some suggestions? I personally don't approve of burning books, but I guess there are probably way more copies of Atlas Shrugged in the world than anyone will ever possibly need. Especially with the way our economy is going. Let's also toss in Michael Crichton's State of Fear and as well as Max Barry's Jennifer Government



Then came the BREAKING NEWS that Jones canceled the burning because he met some random Florida Muslim who said that he personally would prefer the mosque moved, and took that as a Islamic promise that it would be and was then outraged that he's been lied to. Because obviously all Muslims are linked by a hive mind like brain. But then the news got a whole lot more entertaining.

However, those behind the cultural centre denied that they ever spoken to the local imam or Mr Jones.

Mr Jones then said Imam Muhammad Musri had "clearly, clearly lied to us".

"Given what we are now hearing, we are forced to rethink our decision," Mr Jones said. "So as of right now, we are not cancelling the event, but we are suspending it."

Mr Musri, from the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said Mr Jones had "stretched his words", and that he had only agreed to fly to New York with Mr Jones on Saturday and speak with the leaders of the Islamic centre project.

Mr Musri said he had told the pastor "that I personally believe the mosque should not be there, and I will do everything in my power to make sure it is moved", but denied ever mentioning any offer to move it.

If the administration had ignored this idiots insane rantings about potentially burning a book that is no more violent than his own holy book, then perhaps people wouldn't have died in the riots protesting the proposed on/off burning. Not to mention the copy cats. Even if mister Jones decides not to do it, you know tons of other right-wing idiots are going to take his place and be the edgy one to burn the Koran.



Did you see the smug look on that asshole's face? You don't need to watch the whole thing, it gets really annoying after the 40th "What's your name" and "Watch your step" as the police lead him out. But there you go, Pastor Jones. Isn't that what you wanted? I should also put some blame on the news medias for making such an epic news piece out of some loser in Florida.

It's as if they'll do anything to make sure to troll anyone who lives in a sand country. People are actually writing "Koran" on pieces of paper, CD's of the downloaded document files of the Koran and burning that. Then there's this very stab at thy heart act..



I'm still amazed that people actually think that bacon and pig's blood is like kryptonite for Muslims. It's pretty hilarious. What next? You going to put slabs of meat and a piece of cheese on a Torah and then spill on it wine handled by a gentile?

There was that news going around that troops were putting pig's blood on their bullets, as if getting shot with something they don't consider clean would hurt anymore than the fact that they just got fucking shot. More than likely for doing nothing but being Hajji.

Besides that, why is it news now that someone is messing with their holy book? It's not like there hasn't been reports going all the way back to 2002 of US soldiers ripping pages out of prisoners' Korans and flushing them down the toilet and no one gave a shit about all that until now. It took you, Terry Jones, and your 30 followers to bring this to the global level.



So then we just got to the bottom of all this. To get the proposed Mosque near* ground zero to move. I'm not sure if threatening to burn their holy book is anymore tasteless than what the right wing news medias do on a daily basis in encouraging the morons of this nation to become even more bigoted towards other religions.

But it's not like Fox or the New York Post are defining a zone of Muslim exclusion by where 9/11 victims' remains were found...



Oh fuck. Well now. touche. Fox news is literally using deaths of innocents as talking points for their political agenda. I'm curious as to how many bodies it takes to make sure you're both fair and balanced. Maybe Fox should be pushing for the center's construction to be on top of the ancient American patriot burial ground so that the inevitable haunting can drive Muslims away forever.

But let's just take a look at how Fox news is trying to spin this shit now....



Oh no! A second right wing biased media format has hit the stupid topic in the form of the New York Post;



wow, what the fuck is this. I find myself wondering where the line that The Onion ends on and Fox News/ NY Post begins. But then you factor that even with this spin in the no spin zone, it's not much of a defense when you think about it. The community center isn't in the remains-cluster on that map, so it should be fine.

We keep this day holy and sacred for some reason. I'm not exactly sure why, either. When you think about it, the terrorist won. Every time you go to the airport and you have to suffer airport security going through your shit, which in the situation of your laptop has been ruled unconstitutional, you should realize that the terrorist won.

That's the way terrorism works and how we let them win. It's not the attack that hurts the most people, given this one did hurt a lot of people and every death is tragic, especially of the FDNY, since they had little communications thanks to congress not giving them funding, but the real tragedy is of the loss of freedoms for the survivors.



When you look at the laundry list of freedoms that our country has lost, you should see every little victory by those who hate our lifestyle. Basically what I'm saying is that when the planes hit and Bush just sat there stupedfied reading ma chèvre de compagnie it was over. the terrorists won and everyone knew it.

I like to believe that Bush would have been a one term useless president without 9/11 happening. And that we would be a totally different country today otherwise. Historians are going to look back and this is going to be one of those 'what if Germany won the war" of the 21st century type of things.

Then again, 9/11 just provided the administration with the excuse to do openly what it had always been planning to do in Afghanistan as well as getting payback on Saddam for dear ol' Daddy.

The government policies that came out of 9/11 still sicken me. We're in two full out wars attempting to reconstruct countries that never even thought about attacking us. It wasn't even preemptive, we just straight up attacked two countries unprovoked.

There's many organizations that recognize these military operations as war crimes. It's only a matter of time before enemies of the U.S., like Syria and Iran, start issuing official statements acknowledging the war crimes committed by the U.S. military and the various security firms it hired against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Opening up the flood gates for other nations to follow suit.



You have to wonder why we're even in Afghanistan.. Okay, well you don't have to really considering we just found a giant amount of lithium that those "sand people" have been living on. But long before we hit flatscreen pay dirt the Bush administration was all gung-ho and trying to find a reason to go in there for the obvious reason of oil. It's really a tragic tale that more people don't realize it or want to admit to it.

The Bush administration was looking to take advantage of the situation to get a pipeline through from the Caspian for some time before it. In fact, look at this administration memo.

"May 15, 2001
Regarding the placement of the Unocal Pipeline, a US Official delivered this ultimatum to the Taliban (via the Pakistani delegation acting as their interlocutors): "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." (Ref: Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie in "Forbidden Truth" (31) (Book's Preface online-pdf format (32) )"
found it here

They were already planning on going into Afghanistan long before those towers came down. To add even more fuel to the fire, Karzai was an adviser to the company that was going to do the pipeline. So we were even dealing with that fucker. The bonus for him? His brother runs the drug game in Afghanistan.

If you have a few more moments of silence to spare, I would highly advise reading this TIMES article on how the Bush Administration was way ahead of the terrorist attacks in wanting a reason to go there. So you just have to wonder how many decades of grieving before we get taken to the world's court?

And if you want to pin it on ourselves as an inside job or not, that's your own doing. I may be very opinionated on other subjects, but the topic of if we destroyed the WTC just doesn't cross my mind. Maybe I just can't accept that we could do that. And for the record, it was a tragedy no matter who did it or why.


Be thankful I didn't put in Tribute.wmv

Also, I may be crass with some of the things said or the images posted here, but for my money what I find far more offensive than any number of 9/11 jokes I could tell here is when Politicians pull out the 9/11 card out of their asses to justify anything they want, but then won't approve a health care fund for first responders.

It's really embarrassing.



The fact that we can't get the medical care for those first responders and for all of those people who now suffer lung illnesses because they were shoveling around in the muck and debris of the collapsed towers searching as it went from a rescue mission to one of recovery. So maybe I joke around about this or roll my eyes at the "patriotic" songs simply because if I stopped and took any of that seriously for a second, I would be too ashamed of my fellow man.

So is paying a little respect and decency, even once a year, for thousands of murdered fellow human beings too much to ask for? I say yes, it is. Not to be mean and say get over it, but we should move on. I'm not being edgy or ironic. There is a difference between private grieving and a public holiday designed to pick at old wounds and rile up the masses thirst for Arab blood.

Americans love watching shock and awe on their TV, but when someone does it to us we get whiny about it. The use of 9/11 to portray the US as a victim needs to be done away with and de-legitimized. It needs to be mocked at every opportunity. No one should be able to invoke that day without feeling like a complete hypocrite.

So with that I say God bless you, God bless the United States of America. Good night, good luck.. Never forget, as if you could somehow.

Osama Sighed As He Drew His Katana...

Osama Sighed As He Drew His Katana...

You take a dash of Jack Bauer and add in a cup of Book of Eli. Whisk and toss in Some Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and you have a taste of what this next story is about. You see, there's no other way to describe the following news piece other than that. For you see, anArmed US 'Bin Laden hunter' is held in Pakistan

An American man who claimed to have been on a mission to hunt down Osama Bin Laden has been arrested in northern Pakistan, police say.

They said that 52-year-old Gary Brooks Faulkner, from California, was detained in the mountains of Chitral district - just north of Peshawar.

He had a pistol, dagger and a sword and was carrying Christian literature.

Police say the man was stopped near the border with Afghanistan's Nuristan province, a known Taliban stronghold.

They say that Mr Faulkner told investigators after his arrest late on Sunday that he was on a solo mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.

"We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama Bin Laden," police spokesman Mumtaz Ahmad Khan told the AP news agency.

But he said that police suspicions grew when officers seized the pistol, the sword and night-vision equipment.

Mr Faulkner is now being questioned by intelligence officials in Peshawar, the main city in north-western Pakistan.

He has told police he visited Pakistan seven times, and this was his third trip to Chitral.

Police say that Mr Faulkner was also carrying a book containing Christian verses and teachings.

When asked if he felt that he had a chance of tracing Bin Laden, Faulkner replied, "God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him", Mr Khan told AP.

The US embassy in Pakistan confirmed that a US citizen had been arrested and the embassy was seeking access to him.

Correspondents say that the Chitral area is widely seen as having escaped much of the violence that has blighted the rest of north-west Pakistan.

In April a Greek man who worked in one of the few museums in the area was released by the Taliban after being held by them for eight months.

Bin Laden has evaded a huge US effort to capture him since the 9/11 attacks in the US.

Chitral - because of its close proximity to Nuristan - is considered to be one of his possible hiding places.

Look, if hunting someone with a pistol and a Katana is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Bless this white Christian warrior, perhaps if there were more folks like him in the world we wouldn't be living in the shadow of Muslim oppression



This dude is way off target though. Osama is in a secret bunker lounging with his feet up on a foot rest under 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C., USA. Or maybe he's in some nondescript building on the naval observatory grounds. Or, you know.. Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years.

I liked this part of the article

"At first we thought he was mentally deranged".... "Then we found out he was American"

Americans are human cartoons. This should be the final proof that Americans watch too much violent TV and senseless action films. Okay, maybe I'm wrong there. American TV compared to some other countries like Russia isn't so much 'Violent' as much as it is fascist will-to-power nonsense.

But maybe this guy has a good goal. Just think about it, the only guy looking for Bin Laden foiled. They really should have sent him on his way, maybe given him some body armor for his trouble and wished him the best of luck. You know he's going to need it. He's doing more with his life than any of us. He has a quest! By mocking this christian soldier it only proves how hollow my own life is.



The sword is the best thing about this. What kind of fucking idiot believe he can take down Osama with anything less than Hanzo steel? Fucking idiot Americans. How do I know it wasn't a Hanzo steel? He would never have been taken into custody if it had been...

They should release him and let him continue the hunt with the addition of a cameraman and make it into a summer reality TV show. They should also pitch it to Al-Jazeera with a laugh track. It'll do great in all markets. Think of the DVD sales! All this guy needs is a bullwhip and a sidekick and he'd be his own Hollywood blockbuster.

I do hope they'll release him. It will be nice to see some worthless American scum get their head chopped off on Youtube. It's been so long....

Please, PLEASE say it was this guy;


I know, I know. This is all a little mean. Let's all make fun of the mentally ill, why not. But think of it this way - A mentally ill man has resources to pursue his fantasies, is stopped from removing his genes from the pool. It's pretty clear what we have here - Afghani nanny state.

Considering the best intelligence agencies in the world operating with seemingly limitless funding and all the top notch technology there is can't find him, why the hell not just let this guy go make a fool out of himself? I think they were scared he might actually succeed where America has failed. We all know that America needs its dialysis machine boogey man to continue this war, it's not like we found gold in them there hills.. Oh wait.



But this act of courage by the mentally unstable isn't all that strange. American filibusters have been adventuring in the third world since the birth of the nation. I guess I'm just surprised there's any left now to do this. You know, given the general wealth, ability to travel, and access to firearms the modern American has should be infrequent. They just join the Army/XE/Blackwater instead now and get to use better and cooler weapons.

Perhaps we should be reminded that Afghanistan literally offered Osama Bin Laden to us and we refused because we wanted him turned over unconditionally (the condition was we stop bombing their civilians once he was captured)

Oh, don't believe me? Need some evidence? Shut the fuck up.

No Blood For Highly Toxic Precious Metals

No Blood For Highly Toxic Precious Metals

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... Sorry, I just had to laugh about the fact that when Obama stated we were going to go into Afghanistan and occupy it because the terrorist where there, I questioned it thinking that they were all in Iran already or... you know, they weren't actually there. So when it's made clear the real reason why we are occupying that country, as you can see in this news story, I just have to laugh because if I don't, I'd start to cry..

U.S. Discovers Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.

American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.

So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

So all this time this was the reason why Afghanistan was the "right" war. And here I thought it was all a CIA ruse to control the opiate trade. Well, it's not like we were every going to leave Afghanistan anyway, right? I think I saw a movie about this once, only it had a bunch of sexy blue cat-people in it.

This whole thing is a pretty huge discovery, I guess. Afghanistan goes from not having really anything to being the new minerals envy of the world in one short stroke. The lithium deposits are probably particularly appealing to the U.S. so they don't have to deal with Commie scum in Bolivia.




Oh yes, a mineral wealth in a country already the most corrupt in the world? Fuck yes! Couldn't ask for a better way to start a week off. Afghanistan is going to be America's biggest strip mine - move over West Virginia, we got a new player in the game!

I do have to laugh about the "Just found out" part. Ha! This has been known for a long time, it is an untapped resource that can be held through military power, of course we are in there. Would you look at all this awesome stuff in this country we invaded and occupied? How unexpected and lucky for us! I just can't believe America's luck on this whole war on terror thing. How lucky we are, I tell you! Though if there is actually a lot of lithium, then China is going to freak the fuck out.



Those poor heroin growers and traffickers, they don't know what hit them and what will hit them next. Why yes, I do hope these new found riches bring the Afgahni people many generations of prosperity and good will.. Though we both know that shit isn't going to happen.

You see, if a country is at a certain development level, discovering more resources is generally positive, see for example OPEC nations, etc. Unfortunately if they are not of that level a wealth of resources seems to have a purely negative effect. See as an example the Congo and hell, all of Africa. Look how rich the average Jamican is thanks to Alcoa. Afghanistan obviously falls in the second category. So I can't really see even a glimmer of hope in what should otherwise be a joyous occasion for its people.



Afghanistan will be horribly exploited, of course. The average Afghan is going to get zip.shit for this, just like the resource rich nations in Africa have people who are poor as shit. At least the opium will dull the pain of 14 hour mining days.

How did they even make this discovery? Whoops, we accidentally shipped a team of geologist and their equipment to our temporarily occupied territory. Might as well let them look around while we arrange return flights home. Maybe they stumbled across the precious metals while going through one of those supposed underground mazes Osama was hiding in. Imagine that, finding minerals in a region renowned for its mountains? What a shock!

But do people still honestly think we fight wars to spread democracy, freedom and the American way? I guess the last one is true since the American way is capitalism and.. well, we all know that's about fucking over your fellow man. But really, Americans have been brainwashed by multiple generations into believing this bullshit. It's all about greed. Always was and always will be. Just watch China as they invade and actually succeed in Afghanistan.

All in the name of new laptops!

American Foreign Conflict Status? It's Complicated OR Obama, I'mma Let You Finish, But Kissinger Had The Best Peace Prize Speech OF ALL TIME

American Foreign Conflict Status? It's Complicated OR Obama, I'mma Let You Finish, But Kissinger Had The Best Peace Prize Speech OF ALL TIME

Ok, that was a long title, but I just merged two topics I have been meaning to talk about into one. The Afghanistan proposed 18 month decision and the recent Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. You see, for the first one, the United States Department of Defense and The Joint Chies of Staff brought us (via PA Consulting Group / PA Knowledge Limited) the layout for Afghanistan.


Full PDF presentation from PA Consulting

As you can see, it's beyond complicated on how they're going to do this... and do it in 18 months.
Then again, I could make a similar chart trying to decide what cereal to buy at the store. One could even say that this was him being scared. Every time I've tried to map out every nuance of a decision it was because I was too scared to just make a move.

The New York Times - At War From the Front Lines Blog posted:

For anyone wondering why it took President Obama three months to decide on a strategy for Afghanistan, a look at these military schematics uncovered by NBC’s Richard Engel might help explain the weeks of deliberation that went into the plan. The material outlines the military’s counterinsurgency, or COIN, strategy.

The maps, which look like something Cy Twombly might put together on a spirograph, make it plain that whatever the timeline for deployment and withdrawal, there appears to be no straight line to victory in Afghanistan

For those of you who complain that he took 3 months to decide on Afghanistan, you shouldn't be. As you can see, it was pretty complex. Though it does seem that now the plan seems to be Kill Browns. Got it?

In hindsight, it is sort of a waste of time simply because all his careful deliberation still led him down the BURN AFGHANS path. It looks like half of it is cultural/belief tolerance and respect and building some sort of infrastructure. We're still going to lose tho... but maybe if they do A LOT of humanitarian aid it won't be a complete waste of blood shed. Maybe the US will even work to remove every landmine... ahahahahahaha yeah, never mind.



I know it would be a task to try to complete, but it would actually do a lot more good. There's people in Laos that still fear walking in the field do to landmines and other explosives we dropped on them. It wouldn't be that difficult. there's Sprayable "eco-friendly" bacteria that illuminates on contact with organic explosives vis-a-vis landmines. The site is pretty impressive and it includes a photo of an elephant who's hoof was blown off by a landmine.

Back to the graph and let's see what it actually says:

1) despite being there a while, we still don't understand the all-important local situations very well
2) the central government is a complete and utter failure
3) because the government is fucked nobody trusts it enough to support them over the insurgency. if they're on our side it's for reasons which have nothing to do with the government and everything to do with local politics which we still don't really understand.
4) we can't seem to fix their economy, which goes hand in hand with the central government being worthless
5) at least the insurgents are having trouble working together and haven't all allied under the banner of some third party to drive us into the sea

This is why Obama's decision was basically a catch all that let him make no decision while buying himself 18 months of free reign and making pullout of Afghanistan a non-issue for the next election. We've been here before. I'm not even going to say Vietnam. That's not what I'm talking about. During the whole Rambo II style of liberating Afghanistan from Russia by armoring them, it was a mess. The guerrillas didn't work together during the soviet-afgan war. They were fighting36 different groups.

Moving on to the second part of this. The Peace Prize... specifically the speech given. Well, let's get to the prize first. The Dalai Lama, who never says anything bad about anyone ever, had this to say:

As President Barack Obama prepares to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the Dalai Lama told Sky News he believes the award is "a little early" and cautioned the U.S. president against relying too much on his advisers.

The exiled Tibetan leader won the Nobel prize 20 years ago for his peaceful opposition to Chinese rule in his country.

President Obama is in Norway to collect his award, which he has controversially been awarded in his first year in office. Some commentators have joked that the award was for "not being George Bush".

The Dalai Lama told Sky News: "I think if you are realistic, it may have been a little early but it doesn't matter, I know Obama is a very able person. Sometimes these individual persons rely on different advice from different people so like former President Bush junior, as a human being I really love him, really wonderful person, very honest, very truthful.

"But I think due to his advisers' views, some of his policies have been a disaster."

Obama declined to meet the Dalai Lama during a recent visit to Washington, with observers pointing out it may have been awkward to do so just before the president travelled to China.

This is a guy who praises and prays for the leaders of the CCP who order monks and nuns to be rounded up and tortured for owning pictures of him. He is the DEFINITION of patience. And he thinks it was unwarranted.

In the speech Obama said things like;

"Peace movements wouldn't have stopped Hitler"

I'm sure the two dozen or so remaining members of Al-Qaeada hiding somewhere in Afghanistan are not Nazi Germany...

"I reserve the right to unilaterally defend my country"

Against? Again, the terrorist have moved to Pakistan. So I don't know what we're defending ourselves from. Then he goes on and name drops Ronald Reagan.... That has to be worse than anything else. The whole visit so far felt like a bunch of backwards villagers trying to impress the cool city guy.

"We can have war and still strive for peace"

Summary: we need to kill everything in afghanistan because of peace. Obama, I'mma let you finish, but Kissinger had the best peace price troll OF ALL TIME. The Kissinger Peace prize was pretty awful in retrospect, but at least it was given for a specific reason (the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam) and was shared between him and whoever the Vietnamese representative was.



You have to be ballsy and evil to accept the Nobel Peace Prize fter committing nmore troops to an unjust war. Oh, and after you just sold out your country to the pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. Ha, now that's the slap to the face.

In other news, Obama accepted the Slimmer of the Year award while wearing curry-stained track pants. His speech was largely inaudible, as he insisted on eating a 12" deep-dish pizza through the ceremony.

My Nobel speech would be something less preachy and with more buzz phrases.

"Bring back Chappelle Show, cancel Gossip Girls." "I hope Avatar bombs."

I guess the real problem here is that it's not even so much that he's a politican and goes back on his word and promises. It's the way he does it. Obama ignited the passions of a generation of youth whose political coming of age was to rally around this HOPE and CHANGE of Bush's policies coming from one of the most traumatic single incidents in the nation since the Peal Harbor attacks and he just seems to follow the same sort of mentality, only he's a lot better at giving the speech to why he's doing it.

It's only now that those who voted for him are actually aware of what his policies were the whole time. it's not that he just lied or he baited an entire demographic who up until then had nobody acknowledge their fears, they lied to themselves. They never really knew his policies and were dazzled by the idea of change. But this speech as well as his recent actions just shit on those voters dreams and idea of what is change. It's not like he actively shit upon the hopes of a generation, he just opened their eyes to what the reality of politics is.

Send In More Troops! Wait.. What? NO!

Send In More Troops! Wait.. What? NO!

Yesterday Obama announced that he was going to send in 30,000 troops and I'm sure an unknown amount of mercenaries to Afghanistan and Pakistan for 18 months to see if he can wrap this mofo up.

His claim is that we can't just ignore the level of terrorism that could potentially come from those locations if we do leave it alone. Hey, do you guys remember when he tried to appeal to the independent voters and was really hawkish about Afghanistan and Pakistan when trying to outflank McCain? Ha. yeah, that was some time ago...



And at what cost will this run us up in the total? That's the real kicker. It seems the estimate is about a billion-dollars-a-day and that really pisses me off almost as much as the inevitable loss of lives. Considering Medicare-for-all would cost roughly $63 billion/year. Congrats! With one month's funding for two wars on terrorism, you could have provided the entire country with affordable and comprehensive medical care for a year!

Then again, let's be realistic here, the stat is roughly one million/Troop/year. So with 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, that's $100 Million a day. So the rough estimate is Iraq + Afghanistan = Universal Health Care.



Commentator David Sirota wrote a really great piece asking some tough questions about this plane. They're really simple questions and should be addressed or at least some thinking behind them should take place.

Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 20:41
Just a few quick questions to ponder after President Obama's speech announcing a massive escalation in Afghanistan - the very first being shouldn't we be able to honestly answer these queries before mindlessly cheering on a deployment of more troops to a Central Asian war zone?

Here they are in no particular order:

- What percentage of those kids in the West Point audience will die because of this decision?

I would be literally shitting my pants if he just was addressing me, as a soldier and saying that I'm looking to the next 18 months of digging in the trenches and spread thin in these two locations.

- Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how could you support sending other people?

- Why do so many pundits and pro-Obama activists continue to focus on how "hard" and "difficult" and "trying" this decision is for President Obama, rather than on how "hard" and "difficult" and "trying" this will be for the soldiers who are killed? Doesn't Obama get to make this decision, and then go home to the comfortable confines of a butlered White House, while thousands of Americans will be sent 7,000 miles from home to face their potential deaths? Isn't the latter "harder" than the former?

As much as I usually sound like I hate the troops, this is really an important question. How much positive are we really doing in these areas? Afghanistan is corrupt as all hell, do you really think our efforts will be matched?

- Where's the antiwar movement and the marches and the organizing and the protesting? Where's all those well-funded groups that protested George W. Bush's war policy? Or was all that really just about hating George Bush and embracing blind Partisan War Syndrome?

As much as I support Obama and voted for him, I really think that there should be some outrage to this. Yeah, it was a campaign promise, but now is not the time, especially when you have high unemployment rates and trying to work on UHC, to spend money so easily on an overseas war.

- In the days and weeks after this speech, will the White House's cynical new spin get ever more desperate and become, hey - at least an Afghanistan escalation holds out the possibility of making sure military combat casualties start outpacing military suicides?

- Simple budget question: Should we now believe that escalating the Afghanistan War at the same annual cost of universal health care will save more than 45,000 Americans a year (ie. the number of Americans who die every year for lack of health insurance)?

- Did CNN really turn a move to send thousands of Americans to potentially die in Central Asia into an over-stylized, hyper-marketed television show called "Decision Afghanistan?" Is the media really that soulless, or did my eyes betray me? Because it's really hard for me to believe that even in this cynical age, a television network tried to make a cheap reality-TV show out of life-and-death decision that could affect tens of thousands of people.

- Which is worse - a stupid person like George W. Bush starting a dumb occupation, or a smart person like Barack Obama following the lead of that stupid person, but actually escalating that occupation?

Bush got us into this mess and instead of getting out, it looks like we're painting the walls red and making an even bigger mess. How are we going to really pull out in 18 months if it's in bad shape?

- The "we're going to escalate war to end war" refrain throughout the speech - have we heard that before somewhere? It sounds sorta like "we'll burn down the Vietnam villages to save them." Just curious if that's what we're talking about here - because, ya know, that worked out really well.

- Are we really expected to believe that massively escalating a war is the way to end a war? I mean, really? Like, is the public really looked at like we're that stupid? And a follow-up question: Are we really that stupid?

- If Obama's Afghan War strategy about escalating a war to end a war was a self-help strategy for, say, alcoholics, wouldn't it prescribe drinking more whiskey to stop drinking - and wouldn't we all laugh at that?

This really does seem like not the case to feed a cough. Instead we should be starving that flu.

- How many pundits will insist that bowing down to the Military-Industrial complex and escalating this missionless war somehow shows "resolve" and "strength" and "toughness" and "leadership" and not embarrassing weakness?

- Would the Obamaphiles now telling us to "give President Obama a chance" with this decision and/or defending Obama's escalation - would these same people be saying we should "give President McCain a chance" and/or defending President McCain's escalation if he was the one in office making this decision?

- I'm confused: Is this hope or change?

I guess we can't really be angry at him. The dude said he was going to do this shit before the election. It literally is one of his campaign promises to go after Osama. Look at what Obama said in July of 2008;

"The Afghan government needs to do more. But we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism," Obama said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq," he said.

Obama said troop levels must increase in Afghanistan.

"For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three," he told CBS. "I think it's very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough."

I mean, at least Bush and Cheney stood to directly profit from the wholesale slaughter of brown people using weapons Cheney sold us and recovering oil for Bush. But I'm all out of ideas on why Obama would be interested in this whole situation as he owns neither sorts of corporations.



It is just a matter of being re-elected in 2012, and you know that 18 month pull out plan is going to be delayed. Just look at Gitmo still up and running and with a hiring McDonalds. Polls aren't necessarily favoring this war, so obviously he has to be directly profiting from it somehow. Or perhaps he just doesn't give a shit. I mean, what's the chances of catching Osama? Really now.

While I realize that these were in his election promises. I do think that now that we see how bad this situation is, that we get something different. It really does seem odd that for all this CHANGE that we are hoping for, this sort of stuff sounds like more of the same. In fact, all the real change that happened was the President's speeches sound a bit more intelligent. But it still sounds like a Bush speech.



I'm not calling on the birth certificate nor am I going to jump on the teabaggers side on this, but really, It just seems Obama's plan to send in more troops to solve the issue is like burning money when we need it on more important, in house expenses.

It's bad enough that the number of suicides by our troops outnumbers the amount of deaths in Iraq so far this year. Do we really want to make sure that those numbers start inverting here? Maybe he's just sending those troops out to weed out the numbers a little and get that jobs available/ workers to fill them quote to balance out a little more?