I'm glad I didn't waste my time reading right-wing blogs, or Canadian government websites, touting all the fantastic accomplishments we've made in Afghanistan.I'm busy enough as it is, so I tend to focus on the people who've almost always been right (and when wrong, at least had their hearts in the right place).Because, if I'd been reading pro-war stuff, I'd have been having useless debates with myself and others since 2001. And here it is, 2008, and Afghanistan is still a mess. If I'd been reading pro-war shit, I'd have been wasting precious minutes hearing from Rick Hillier, Stephen Harper, KKKate McMillan, etc., about how the Taliban is in its "last throes" for the past several years, when the fact that we're still there and insurgency is growing, kinda puts that delusion to rest. The fact that the fighting continues and the insurgency grows makes me trust this guy more than the previously mentioned imbeciles.I'm glad that I don't have the time of day for absolute fucking morons. It saves so much time.
After the latest slime from Brian Platt and his Moronic Messiah Terry Glavin, about the heroic Malalai Joya (essentially she's just a silly girl to these he-man super-democrats) and further nitwittery by Platt at his stupid blog, I've decided to remove his link. I don't even bother to check in on Glavin's "transmonsterrattus" (or whatever) anymore.
Here's the nitwittery - Platt went to Joya's book talk and related it thusly:
In fact, at the presentation she was asked what would prevent the Taliban from taking over after a NATO/UN withdrawal. Instead of answering the question, she proceeded into a long speech about how terrible the situation is right now. So I put up my hand and demanded she answer the question. This led to a long, angry exchange between the two of us that lasted about 10 minutes, at which point I was told to shut up by the "antiwar" organizers of the event.
Is that, or is that not whining about being censored? About how Joya's supporters won't tolerate free debate or being challenged? I responded:
Brian, Do you have the intellectual consistency to acknowledge that you tell people to "shut-up" regularly here at your blog? Do you have the intellectual consistency to understand that you can't piss and moan when Joya's supporters tell you to shut-up after a ten minute argument at a public event when other people want to speak? Or are you just going to be the same old total boob that you always are and delete my post? That would be pretty special though, you have to admit. Responding to the revelation of your hypocrisy by yet another example of your hypocrisy.
Remarkably, Brian chose to delete my post. He then launched into an amazing explosion of blithering:
One more comment, to anyone following this story: anyone who was at the presentation would surely admit that I wasn't "monopolizing" any time at all, which is what Dawg claims at his blog. For every 10 seconds that I spoke, Joya spoke for 2 or 3 minutes.My intervention also came after an hour of Joya speaking and taking embarrassingly soft questions from her adoring fans.I also am making no claims about free speech, so ignore that straw man accusation. I got heckled from the back of the room, that's all. I've done my share of heckling in the past.As anyone at the presentation would also acknowledge, I got my point across just fine.
Yes Brian. I'm sure you did. In your own mind. It's to be expected though. The witless turd was completely wrong about what would happen to the Shiite "rape your wife free" law. He's been wrong about Afghanistan from the very beginning. Why shouldn't he launch into incoherent babbling when called on his hypocrisy?
Reading the latest Harper's Magazine. There's a story "The Master of Spin Boldak" about Abdul Razik, a drug warlord who is the local commander of the Afghan border police in the town of Spin Boldak. Near the end of the article, the author (Matthieu Aikins) writes:
Razik’s clandestine smuggling operations have spilled over into the allied fight against the Taliban, thereby bolstering the widely held perception that the ISAF and the central government are favoring certain tribes and marginalizing others. Soon after he assumed power at the border, Razik began to feud with elements of the Noorzai tribe, particularly the Sultanzai, a rival smuggling clan spread between Spin Boldak and Chaman. One notorious incident took place during the summer of 2006 in Panjwaii District, a volatile area just west of Kandahar city. A predominantly Noorzai district, Panjwaii is a lush river valley crisscrossed by thick orchards and mud-walled compounds, and it provides an excellent springboard for attacks on Kandahar city. During the course of the summer, Taliban fighters had infiltrated the valley, and eventually the district governor, an Achakzai, called in Abdul Razik’s border force.
What followed was a debacle. The Noorzais, fearing their tribal enemies, rose up and joined forces with the Taliban. Razik and his men responded to the unexpected resistance with brutality. “They were killing women and children,” said Ustaz Abdul Halim, a Noorzai and former mujahideen commander who lives in Kandahar city. “After that, everyone was with the Taliban.”
Capitalizing on the tribal dynamics, the Taliban installed a Noorzai, Mullah Rauf Lang, as their commander in Panjwaii District. Later that fall, newly arrived Canadian troops in the area would launch Operation Medusa, a large-scale assault that killed hundreds of fighters and scores of civilians in weeks of close combat and withering bombardments. Today, the area remains one of
the most violent in Kandahar Province—the Canadians suffer many of their casualties there and have recently abandoned two untenable forward operating bases in the area—and anti-government sentiments still run high.
This is the sort of snake-pit that our brilliant leaders have committed us to. This is why our country is committing war-crimes. In order to continue to fund and arm murderers and druglords. These idiots continue to crow after 8 years of miserable failure and they have the nerve to criticize Malalai Joya? There's nothing to be gained by keeping on top of what the deluded nut-bars are saying. At least in the way that I hoped there might be.
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