Dying in the dark

Seven US peoples have been killed in Afghanistan the last few hours, but where’s the political outcry? The Washington Post laments: Yet this may be the first presidential campaign in U.S. history in which an ongoing war fails to produce a significant debate. Explicitly or implicitly, the candidates have successfully encouraged much of the media to…

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History Repeats

In the wake of last weekend’s big NATO Afghan pow-wow, the war in Afghanistan has to be considered finished, kaput, wiping-hands-clean, get-the-shit-out-of-Dodge over with and a debacle for history scholars. Except for the Afghan people: Aleema, a sad-eyed girl in ragged clothes, is one of the 447,547 “internally displaced persons” who have fled their homes,…

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Fire Hazard

As if on cue late yesterday afternoon, a thick, moist portion of coastal fog descended upon my little stretch of northern California coastline and eliminated any view of the rare annular solar eclipse which swiped across these parts on its course from Asia. In the quick descending fog, which filled a sunlight sky in a…

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Surge Dirge

All over the hotel, dignitaries, who had come to the capital to discuss the future of Afghanistan’s security, locked themselves in lavatories or hid under beds as the killing began. — The Telegraph, on the attack last week at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel Despite the slaughter at one of Afghanistan’s supposedly most-secure locations, President Obama still…

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‘Giddy-Up’

Warmongering sonofabitches. Instead of the number 11, US military officials actually meant the number 14 — President Obama on announcing his so-called ‘Afghan surge’ last year blubbered US troops would begin a drawdown in July 2011, but now it seems he was some three years off. Defense honcho Bullet-Bob Gates and a warmongering warning to…

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Headin’ to Helmand

From President Obama’s lips to boots on the ground. Word came Sunday night: Escalation — 35,000 more troops for the Afghan meat-grinder. And the first batch, 9,000 Marines for Helmand province, will leave as soon as Obama opens his mouth Tuesday at West Point, an event creating a most-strange and ironic circumstance for a snow-job —…

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