Afghanistan: What the freak are our troops doing out in the middle of NOWHERE!
15 December 2010By Jane Stillwater
I just finally got around to renting "Restrepo,"
Sebastian Junger's excellent DVD documentary
describing one U.S. Marine platoon's deadly year-long
experience in the high mountain wilds of Afghanistan.
This movie won the grand jury prize at Sundance.
Here's a link to its trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR6OucBc.
And at one point early on in the movie, our brave
Marine platoon members pop into their various
helicopters, tanks and Hummers and move off into the
Korengal Valley -- out in the middle of freaking
NOWHERE. And I'm looking at this movie and I'm asking
myself, "What in the freaking hell are our troops
doing HERE!"
Then there's that one first scene in the movie where
an American tank is negotiating a narrow rocky
mountain pass that had been obviously built originally
for camels. Rock walls run straight up on your left
side and absolutely nothing runs straight down on your
right. This place makes Death Valley look civilized.
You might as well be on the frigging surface of the
MOON.
And I'm sitting here, in Berkeley, in front of my
computer, watching Netflix, and I'm asking myself,
"How the freak does having our troops over in THAT
god-forsaken place make America any safer?" Like those
primitive tribesmen over there are gonna jump onto
their camels, lock and load their RPGs, swim the
Atlantic ocean, take the I-80 across middle America,
arrive in Berkeley unnoticed and endanger ME? Yeah
right.
But what is really endangering me and my family right
now? And your families too? Everyone here knows. It's
Wall Street and the banks, raids on Social Security.
The military-industrial-academic complex, war
profiteers, corrupt lobbyists and corrupt congressmen
in Washington. A president who has sold out his base.
Unemployment. Media that is owned by oligarchs. Lack
of decent, free college education for our children.
Subsidized agribusiness. And bleeding out in an
over-crowded ER.
****
The U.S overthrew the legitimate government of
Honduras because the ambassador wasn't invited to
enough parties? Yikes! Wikileaks: Why the US Supported
the Coup in Honduras: 13. (S) Most noticeable to me
has been [Zalaya's] avoidance of public meetings with
visiting US officials. Whether Cabinet officials or
CODELs, Zelaya always is a gracious host, but never
comes out of the meeting to have his picture taken
publicly with our visitors, as he is so anxious to do
with other visitors from Nicaragua, Cuba and
Venezuela. Almost all of our meetings take place at my
Residence rather than at the more public setting of
the Presidential Palace. He made no attempt to
disseminate his may photo ops with President Bush
after the June 2006 meeting in Washington. The fact is
that the President of the country prefers to meet
quite often in the privacy of my Residence but not to
be seen in public with American visitors. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/stopstripmining/33077/wikileaks-why-the-us-supported-the-coup-in-honduras
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