In war, regardless of the outcome, nobody wins.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;222984]The U.S. can not be the world's policeman and it is about time that we
stopped trying.[/QUOTE]

you all tried to ? I didn't notice just joking must be another flaw in the system caused on behalf of the pigeonhole principle.

[quote=retina;222985]In war, regardless of the outcome, nobody wins.[/quote][URL]http://www.google.com/search?q=money%20afghanistan%20siphon&hl=en[/URL]

[quote=R.D. Silverman;222983]Would these be the same "innocents" who cheered when 9/11 happened?[/quote]

That is an [B]asinine [/B]statement. There may have been some who cheered but how can paint all Afghans with such a broad stroke? It is like referring to Americans as "Would these be the same people who burnt little black girls in churches?"

Or if you prefer "Would these be the same 'America's finest' who raped and burnt a 14 year old girl and killed all her family?" or "Would these be the same soldiers who tortured in Abu Ghraib?"

That is just a stupid way of thinking! I'm disappointed with your intellectual laziness Bob.
</flamebait>

PS: Cheering after 9/11 still does not make anyone any less innocent. Or have you forgotten the first amendment to your constitution?

Back to the WikiLeaks documents: At least as interesting to me as the documentation of the real "dirty war" going on in Afghanistan is the apparently deep and longstanding role of the Pakistani intelligence service in [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/asia/26isi.html]actively aiding and abetting the Taliban[/url] - yet another example of the U.S.' naive attempt to solve all problems by throwing guns and money at them backfiring. With "allies"like that, who needs enemies?

Now our only interest in propping up a sequence of dubious or flat-out corrupt regimes in Pakistan is in an effort to try to make sure their nukes stay safeguarded ... I doubt that effort will be any more successful in influencing the outcomes on that front than the war-on-terror one is.

NYT article today makes clear why the document leak (especially in its timing) is so crucial:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/asia/28wikileaks.html?_r=1&ref=world]Document Leak May Hurt Efforts to Build War Support[/url]: [i]The disclosure of a six-year archive of classified military documents increased pressure on President Obama to defend his military strategy as Congress prepares to deliberate financing of the Afghanistan war.[/i]
[quote]The disclosures, with their detailed account of a war faring even more poorly than two administrations had portrayed, landed at a crucial moment. Because of difficulties on the ground and mounting casualties in the war, the debate over the American presence in Afghanistan has begun earlier than expected. Inside the administration, more officials are privately questioning the policy.

In Congress, House leaders were rushing to hold a vote on a critical war-financing bill as early as Tuesday, fearing that the disclosures could stoke Democratic opposition to the measure. A Senate panel is also set to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Mr. Obama’s choice to head the military’s Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, who would oversee military operations in Afghanistan.

Administration officials acknowledged that the documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, will make it harder for Mr. Obama as he tries to hang on to public and Congressional support until the end of the year, when he has scheduled a review of the war effort.
[b]
“We don’t know how to react,” one frustrated administration official said on Monday. “This obviously puts Congress and the public in a bad mood.”[/b][/quote]
[i]My Comment:[/i] That`s right ... can`t have that nasty old thing called "the truth" - whether about economy, the real cost of health care reform, the real nature of the recently-passed financial-reform megabill or the war in Afghanistan - putting the proles in a bad mood, now.
[quote]Mr. Obama is facing a tough choice: he must either figure out a way to convince Congress and the American people that his war strategy remains on track and is seeing fruit — a harder sell given that the war is lagging — or move more quickly to a far more limited American presence.

As the debate over the war begins anew, administration officials have been striking tones similar to the Bush administration’s to argue for continuing the current Afghanistan strategy, which calls for a significant troop buildup. Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the Afghan war effort came down to a matter of American national security, in testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee two weeks ago.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, struck a similar note on Monday in responding to the documents, which WikiLeaks made accessible to The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel.

“We are in this region of the world because of what happened on 9/11,” Mr. Gibbs said. [b]“Ensuring that there is not a safe haven in Afghanistan by which attacks against this country and countries around the world can be planned. That’s why we’re there[/b], and that’s why we’re going to continue to make progress on this relationship.” [/quote]
[i]My Comment:[/i] Given that you have not yet caught Al Qaida #1 and #2 despite nearly a decade`s effort and huge amounts of money thrown at the task, pardon me if I question the ongoing state of perma-emergency here. Also, the fact that the real safe havens are not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan and it`s clear the government there is actively helping keep that so, this whole thing looks like a lost cause run by blinkered blunderers who are still living in Fall 2001.

Oh, the irony: Due to a revolt in his own party, Obama's latest war-funding bill only passed because of Republican support:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/28prexy.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=world]Democrats Split as House Backs War Funds[/url]: [i]The House of Representatives agreed on Tuesday to provide $37 billion to continue financing America’s two wars, but the vote showed deepening divisions and anxiety among Democrats over the course of the nearly nine-year-old conflict in Afghanistan[/i]

A separate story I saw about the vote was that the democratic house leadership drastically limited debate on the measure (to a total of 40 minutes) by invoking a rules clause normally only used for bills considered too trivial to justify floor debate. Nice.

[QUOTE=garo;223041]PS: Cheering after 9/11 still does not make anyone any less innocent. Or have you forgotten the first amendment to your constitution?[/QUOTE]

I agree. Cheering the deaths of thousands may be a despicable thing to do, but it does not make those who cheered criminals.

So more releases to come.

And "someone" (gee I wonder who?) is currently DoSing the site.

So let's throw back the same old excuses they give the public when talking about phone snooping and encryption key escrow:

[size=4][b]"USA: if you are doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide".[/b][/size]

I don't think it is a coincidence that homeland security has just shut down 70+ sites: [url]http://mashable.com/2010/11/27/homeland-security-website-seized/[/url]

These are torrent sites, etc.
DHS would like to make these new leaks harder to get.

[CENTER]War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength[/CENTER]

[QUOTE=retina;239059]So more releases to come.

And "someone" (gee I wonder who?) is currently DoSing the site.

So let's throw back the same old excuses they give the public when talking about phone snooping and encryption key escrow:

[size=4][b]"USA: if you are doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide".[/b][/size][/QUOTE]

There is nothing wrong with taking a dump or having sex, but I am sure
that you would not want pictures released to the world of your doing
either.

[QUOTE=retina;239059]So more releases to come.

And "someone" (gee I wonder who?) is currently DoSing the site.

So let's throw back the same old excuses they give the public when talking about phone snooping and encryption key escrow:

[SIZE=4][B]"USA: if you are doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide".[/B][/SIZE][/QUOTE]At least some leaks have been released, according to the Beeb: [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11858895[/url]

Is it a genuine DoS or is it just an instance of the SlashDot effect?

The mirrors will pop up soon enough.


Paul