‘Peace upon earth!’ was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We’ve got as far as poison-gas.
— Christmas: 1924, Thomas Hardy

(Illustration found here).

In shame, the US has become another asshole nation.

Despite the overwhelming evidence to the absolute contrary, the NATO/US war effort in Afghanistan continues, more troops, more tanks, more dying.
And fighting the fright of dying with indiscriminate torture — even of US citizens.
Eighteen-year-old Gulet Mohamed — currently being held in Kuwait after being arrested without charges and then tortured — was studying Arabic and Islam in Yemen on continuous and valid travel papers when he was snagged on bullshit accusations.
Read Mohamed’s horror story via Glenn Greenwald here.
This so-called ‘war on terror’ is a mirror/reverse conflict — the terror is on everybody, bad guy or not.
Just look at how the US TSA handles airport security, bullshit.
And the lies about Afghanistan, what a crock.

The UK’s chief of Defense staff, General Sir David Richards, on NPR: I think if there is no clear signs of progress over, shall we say, the period of particularly late 2011-2012, then we will have to assess again whether we’ve got it right. And this is our – not necessarily our final, but this is certainly our best chance now of getting it right. We’ve got the resources. We’ve got the troop numbers. It won’t go on like that forever, so we’ve got to get it right.
Dave, you’re bloody well wrong — it’s done too late.

The “surge’ authorized by President Obama last year hasn’t done squat.
In fact, appearances are it’s worse as the Taliban force is the same, if not larger, and are beating the shit out of forces way bigger, and with more firepower — David and Goliath with the US as the big, bad giant.
Via antiwar.com:

A massive effort by U.S. and NATO forces — including offensives in the insurgent heartland and targeted assassinations of rebel leaders — has failed to dent Taliban numerical strength over the past year, according to military and diplomatic officials.
A NATO official said this week that the alliance estimates current number of insurgent fighters at up to 25,000, confirming figures provided earlier by several military officers and diplomats.
…
The Taliban are pitted against about 140,000 ISAF troops — two-thirds of them Americans — and over 200,000 members of the government’s security forces.
This gives the allies a numerical advantage of at least 12:1 — one of the highest such ratios in modern guerrilla wars.
At the height of the Vietnam War, the U.S. and its allies had an advantage of between 4-5 to 1 over their Communist foes.

And we all know how that nasty episode ended.

Just about in the same breath, Bullet-Bob Gates, the US defense chief, announced Thursday an additional 1,400 Marines will be sent to Afghanistan, supposedly the new manpower will stay within those most-wonderful guidelines set by Obama.

And it’s dangerous to even take a bath in Afghanistan.
From the BBC this morning:

At least 17 people have been killed in a suicide attack in a crowded public bath house in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, officials say.
They say 23 others were injured in the attack, which took place in the town of Spin Boldak, on the Pakistan border.
Officials said the bomber killed his target — a police commander who was inside the building at the time.

The other folks were reverse collateral damage, huh?
Gemme the ole poison/mustard gas anytime.