Tom Engelhardt: Kabul gets its own stimulus package

[unhappycamper]

Kabul gets its own stimulus package
By Tom Engelhardt
Nov 18, 2010

You must have had a moment when you thought to yourself: It really isn't going to end, is it? Not ever. Rationally, you know perfectly well that whatever your "it" might be will indeed end, because everything does, but your gut tells you something different.

I had that moment recently when it came to the American way of war. In the past couple of weeks, it could have been triggered by an endless string of ill-attended news reports like the Christian Science Monitor piece headlined "US involvement in Yemen edging toward 'clandestine war'." Or by the millions of dollars in US payments reportedly missing in Afghanistan, thanks to under-the-table or unrecorded handouts in unknown amounts to Afghan civilian government employees (as well as Afghan security forces, private-security contractors, and even the Taliban).

Or how about the news that the F-35 "Joint Strike Fighter," the cost-overrun poster weapon of the century, already long overdue, will cost yet more money and be produced even less quickly?

Or what about word that our Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has officially declared the Obama administration "open" to keeping US troops in Iraq after the announced 2011 deadline for their withdrawal?

Or how about the news from McClatchy's reliable reporter Nancy Youssef that Washington is planning to start "publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing US forces in July 2011"?

[saigon68]

1. It will NEVER end

The Corporate Ruling Class needs the MI complex and Billions to satisfy its economic addiction to money and power

The Onward Christian Soldiers Crowd needs an enemy to keep the donations flowing

Young men of military career families need a War on Ragheads to improve their macho image

Scum like Bohner and Cheney have a psycho-sexual need to use power to kill untermenschen