http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/10/26/meet-the-press-continues-the-non-debate-on-afghanistan/ The national media watch group Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:08:35 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/10/26/meet-the-press-continues-the-non-debate-on-afghanistan/comment-page-1/#comment-10904 Paul Diamond Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:55:48 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=13196#comment-10904 Afghanistan is not a country. Afghanistan is not a nation. Afghanistan is a string of valleys strung together by a harsh, rugged, sometimes impassable mountain range. Afghanistan is scattered villages of tribal and familial groups loosely connected by trade, a common language and a common religious tradition. Even in the cities the people congregate into neighborhoods of common tribal, familial and/or religious groups. If you are not of their village or neighborhood, if you do not speak their language you are a foreigner, an outsider, a stranger. If you are a stranger with a gun you are an enemy. As long as there are foreigners with guns on Afghan soil there will be Afghans to fight them. Many have learned that hard lesson the Persians, the Greeks, the Moghuls, the Mongols, the Chinese, the British, the Soviets and now the Americans, us. Military action is a failure of diplomacy. The Afghans will never be defeated by force. The Afghans will never be subdued by force. They must be charmed, cajoled, enticed, courted family by family, tribe by tribe, village by village, marketplace by marketplace, neighborhood by neighborhood. Nation building must start with trust and respect on the most local levels. It will only happen by diplomacy. Perhaps it is not being reported. I am hearing nothing about anyone getting out of their cushy embassy offices and going out to the valleys, villages, marketplaces and neighborhoods. Breaking bread, sitting down over a cup of coffee or tea, to ask the Afghan people what they want for their country. Instead of telling them what we think they should have. They need roads. Are we building roads? Are they building roads? How many Afghans are employed building those road? Road building in the ruggeg Afghan mountains will be a slow, tedious, expensive proposition. Most Afghans walk, ride donkeys and camels. What is being done to improve the tracks, paths and trails between villages that Afghans have used for millenia until roads are built in those rugged, forbidding mountains. They need and want electricity. Why are we not contracting with American companies to provide windmills, solar panels and small generating plants that run on biofuels and animal power to supply that need, particularly in their remote mountainous regions and villages. Train Afghans to install, service, repair and run them. Afghanistan is the perfect laboratory for developing local green alternative energy. Not just for use in Afghanistan, but also for use in the United States and for export to many third world and remote locales. A way to provide power in a remote mountain village in Afghanistan will certainly work in the African bush, the remotest Australian outback or an Inuit village on the edge of the tundra in Alaska. It will give a major boost to our alternative green energy industry. Give the Afghans the power they need. Provide jobs for Afghanistan and the United States. It will provide alternatives to the poppy production. They can grow cash crops for their biofuel industry, as well as food, in the poppy fields. We can also provide alternative fuel buses and cars so they won't be dependent on foreign fossil fuel products as are we. They need and want education. Let Afghan labor build Schools with materials and support we supply them. Find and train Afghans to teach in them. Train local Afghans to protect their schools and their children. Find moderate and liberal clerics to serve as alternatives for the fundamentalists, violent, angry male bovine excrement that dominates in many parts of Afghanistan. As well as to teach in the madras' a more moderate, peaceful Islam. The best kind of business deal is where both sides walk away from the table feeling as though they have gained something. This proposal is a win-win situation. The only losers will be the officials of a corrupt government that will be bypassed and lose their cut. If this kind of effort is going on I am not hearing any of it in the mainstream media, the alternative press or the internet. Is it because it is not being reported? OR is it because it is not happening. The approach I propose requires humility rather than arrogance. This so-called 'christian' country has never been very big on humility. However, this is a positive approach that has a real chance of success. ~;^}> Afghanistan is not a country. Afghanistan is not a nation. Afghanistan is a string of valleys strung together by a harsh, rugged, sometimes impassable mountain range. Afghanistan is scattered villages of tribal and familial groups loosely connected by trade, a common language and a common religious tradition. Even in the cities the people congregate into neighborhoods of common tribal, familial and/or religious groups.
If you are not of their village or neighborhood, if you do not speak their language you are a foreigner, an outsider, a stranger. If you are a stranger with a gun you are an enemy. As long as there are foreigners with guns on Afghan soil there will be Afghans to fight them. Many have learned that hard lesson the Persians, the Greeks, the Moghuls, the Mongols, the Chinese, the British, the Soviets and now the Americans, us.
Military action is a failure of diplomacy. The Afghans will never be defeated by force. The Afghans will never be subdued by force. They must be charmed, cajoled, enticed, courted family by family, tribe by tribe, village by village, marketplace by marketplace, neighborhood by neighborhood. Nation building must start with trust and respect on the most local levels. It will only happen by diplomacy.
Perhaps it is not being reported. I am hearing nothing about anyone getting out of their cushy embassy offices and going out to the valleys, villages, marketplaces and neighborhoods. Breaking bread, sitting down over a cup of coffee or tea, to ask the Afghan people what they want for their country. Instead of telling them what we think they should have.
They need roads. Are we building roads? Are they building roads? How many Afghans are employed building those road?
Road building in the ruggeg Afghan mountains will be a slow, tedious, expensive proposition. Most Afghans walk, ride donkeys and camels. What is being done to improve the tracks, paths and trails between villages that Afghans have used for millenia until roads are built in those rugged, forbidding mountains.
They need and want electricity. Why are we not contracting with American companies to provide windmills, solar panels and small generating plants that run on biofuels and animal power to supply that need, particularly in their remote mountainous regions and villages. Train Afghans to install, service, repair and run them.
Afghanistan is the perfect laboratory for developing local green alternative energy. Not just for use in Afghanistan, but also for use in the United States and for export to many third world and remote locales. A way to provide power in a remote mountain village in Afghanistan will certainly work in the African bush, the remotest Australian outback or an Inuit village on the edge of the tundra in Alaska. It will give a major boost to our alternative green energy industry. Give the Afghans the power they need. Provide jobs for Afghanistan and the United States.
It will provide alternatives to the poppy production. They can grow cash crops for their biofuel industry, as well as food, in the poppy fields. We can also provide alternative fuel buses and cars so they won't be dependent on foreign fossil fuel products as are we.
They need and want education. Let Afghan labor build Schools with materials and support we supply them. Find and train Afghans to teach in them. Train local Afghans to protect their schools and their children.
Find moderate and liberal clerics to serve as alternatives for the fundamentalists, violent, angry male bovine excrement that dominates in many parts of Afghanistan. As well as to teach in the madras' a more moderate, peaceful Islam.
The best kind of business deal is where both sides walk away from the table feeling as though they have gained something. This proposal is a win-win situation. The only losers will be the officials of a corrupt government that will be bypassed and lose their cut.
If this kind of effort is going on I am not hearing any of it in the mainstream media, the alternative press or the internet. Is it because it is not being reported? OR is it because it is not happening.
The approach I propose requires humility rather than arrogance. This so-called 'christian' country has never been very big on humility. However, this is a positive approach that has a real chance of success.
~;^}>

]]> http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/10/26/meet-the-press-continues-the-non-debate-on-afghanistan/comment-page-1/#comment-10580 Allison Kilkenny - Unreported – If Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn did Meet the Press - True/Slant Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:22:18 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=13196#comment-10580 [...] Zakaria’s GPS, FOX News Sunday) have been criticized for their protectionist treatment of beltway platitudes. If the week’s discussion concerns Afghanistan, then Meet the Press will feature a panel [...] [...] Zakaria's GPS, FOX News Sunday) have been criticized for their protectionist treatment of beltway platitudes. If the week's discussion concerns Afghanistan, then Meet the Press will feature a panel [...]

]]> http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/10/26/meet-the-press-continues-the-non-debate-on-afghanistan/comment-page-1/#comment-10349 D.Jessy Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:35:36 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=13196#comment-10349 I am a vet from Canada. I hope you don't mind me commenting. We (over 70% of Canadians) have also expressed the desire that our troops leave Afghanistan. Our politicians also seem to have a deliberate and obstinate insistence on maintaining our troops there. It is incredible that we continue to allow them to run on their own agendas. There seems something serious underlying our elected representatives attitudes that they no longer represent their constituents. They represent their party to the public. Is it any wonder then that we have so few eligible voters turning out at elections? I know many otherwise inteligent people who just shrug and say "what does it matter. It doesn't matter who you vote for, their all the same." I agree Joe, we HAVE TO keep trying, insisting that we get rid of the corruption. I am a vet from Canada. I hope you don't mind me commenting. We (over 70% of Canadians) have also expressed the desire that our troops leave Afghanistan. Our politicians also seem to have a deliberate and obstinate insistence on maintaining our troops there. It is incredible that we continue to allow them to run on their own agendas.
There seems something serious underlying our elected representatives attitudes that they no longer represent their constituents. They represent their party to the public.
Is it any wonder then that we have so few eligible voters turning out at elections? I know many otherwise inteligent people who just shrug and say "what does it matter. It doesn't matter who you vote for, their all the same."
I agree Joe, we HAVE TO keep trying, insisting that we get rid of the corruption.

]]> http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/10/26/meet-the-press-continues-the-non-debate-on-afghanistan/comment-page-1/#comment-10181 Nenad Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:45:12 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=13196#comment-10181 Majority of us, Americans, prefers or demands withdrawal from Afghanistan. So does overwhelming majority of Afghans. So do pluralities or majorities in all other countries whose soldiers serve in Afghanistan and in many other countries of the world. Our continued warring and killing in Afghanistan is ruining our image worldwide and strengthening our enemies. Of the countries polled, only in Israel and Kenya do majorities approve of American warring. Even this irrational support would vanish if their soldiers were engaged there. Majority of us, Americans, prefers or demands withdrawal from Afghanistan. So does overwhelming majority of Afghans. So do pluralities or majorities in all other countries whose soldiers serve in Afghanistan and in many other countries of the world. Our continued warring and killing in Afghanistan is ruining our image worldwide and strengthening our enemies. Of the countries polled, only in Israel and Kenya do majorities approve of American warring. Even this irrational support would vanish if their soldiers were engaged there.

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