You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Argue That the Afghan War Prevents Terror--But It Helps
10/29/2009 by Jim NaureckasDick Morris was on the O'Reilly Factor the other night (10/28/09) advocating a troop escalation in Afghanistan--and his argument was characteristically peculiar:
Listen, terrorist gangs like Al-Qaeda are like HIV virus. They swim in your bloodstream. They don't make you sick. When they latch on to a cell, a nation state, and they use the DNA of that cell, they then become a threat. When they use the accoutrements of nationhood--secure boundaries, a diplomatic corps, an export and import trade, and air force and navy, a tax
system, a conscript population--then they can knockdown the World Trade Center. We have got to stop Al-Qaeda from taking over Afghanistan. And that means stopping the Taliban.
It's hard to say what exactly Afghanistan's diplomatic corps, let alone the landlocked nation's navy, had to do with the September 11 attacks, which were largely planned and executed by Saudi Arabian students based in Germany and the United States. But you have to give Morris credit for being loopy enough to make the case that occupying Afghanistan is necessary to prevent terrorism in the United States; generally corporate media pundits consider that assumption to be self-evident, and don't bother to explain it.
Tags: Afghanistan, Dick Morris, Fox News, September 11
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October 30th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Calling Morris "loopy" really doesn't get at the reality, does it? He knows it's a lie – he knows why the US occupies Afghanistan.
The problem is that the vast majority of people in this country who oppose this hell don't. They don't know from pipeline routes and Grand Game geopolitics. I wish I was smart enough to lay it out, but the fundamentals don't take much intelligence to suss, do they?
There's a shitload of money to be made from the resources in the region, and the US wants to control it and prevent their rapidly rising rivals from doing so.
It's always been the way of empire, hasn't it? Spices and slaves, oil and gas – kill whomever you have to to own them, and say you're converting the natives to Christianity or democracy or whatever other lies have been told for centuries to justify the bloody lust for power.
This war isn't a "tragic mistake". It's not about "revenge" or "women's rights". It's about raw, naked and ancient evil, and that needs to be understood before it can be defeated.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Generally corporate media pundits consider that assumption to be self-evident, and don't bother to explain it.
Just yesterday I saw video of Noam Chomsky talking about how the corporate media enforce ideological conformity that way while disclaiming any censorship.
They claim that only time constraints prevent dissenters from being given time to explain their points. But as Chomsky said, it's the media who allow a fraudulent statement like "We need to escalate in Afghanistan to prevent more terrorism at home" to pass as self-evident, while to deny that is believed to need a long explanation which, darn it, just doesn't fit into their time frame. They need "concision". So sorry.
October 30th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Afghanistan has no resources of note. Afghanistan was/is seen as right of way to transport resources from on areas on to Pakistan and the Arabian sea
October 30th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Afghanistan has no resources? I beg to differ; Afghanistan produces 80% of the World's opiates, that is, heroin and morphine so we are talking about huge wads of untaxed, unregulated profit. We do understand that whenever the CIA invades and occupies a country, the drug production of that country at least doubles. This is how the CIA and US Military funds their evil covert operations around the World.
We haven't already forgotten the Iran/Contra scandal during Bush sr.'s presidency, have we? That was just the tip of the iceberg.
Does anyone seriously still believe the 9/11 story about Al-Qaeda destroying the Twin Towers? Go back and watch the footage: it's a planned demolition.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
We went into Afghanistan for the right reason, to kill Osama BinLadin and as many of his pack as we could lay our hands on.
Because we "dithered" for seven years he and his associates got away and a bunch of good soldiers got killed. Because we "dithered" their loss was for nothing. We had our chance and we blew it!
Let's admit it and get the hell out now before more good soldiers die for nothing. No president's ego is worth one more life. Certainly not Bush's and, unfortunately for him, not Obama's either.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Re resources: That was my point about the pipeline routes. I was referring to the "region" – poor choice of words – at large, including the Middle East, which of course has vast amounts of energy resources.
Re time constraints: But they always find time for Michael Jackson, "Balloon Boy" et al, don't they?
Now that's news you can use.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:18 am
[...] as Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). Reporting? Sounds more like propaganda here. Take a look at what they have to suggest for the War on Terror. That they're promoting an obvious [...]
November 6th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
"We have got to stop Al-Qaeda from taking over Afghanistan. And that means stopping the Taliban."
Why doesn't he put his money where his mouth is and go to Afghanistan himself to stop the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Big Bird and the Flying Pig Flu. I bet he could do a stand up job.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:57 am
Sorry Doug, you reveal your ignorance with the comment that Afghanistan has no resouces. China just made a deal with the corrupt gov't to develope one of the world's largest deposits of copper. There are, and have always been minerals and semi precious stones, fine marbles and Onyx that has been carved for thousands of years.The mountainous regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan have produced produced incredible wealth – unfortunately, only for the rich and greedy.
Yes, it is true, the biggest reason we are there now is to insist that only US companies have control over the pipelines for the oil and gas north.