Brad,

For years I have been advocating paying the Afghans for "desired" behavior. Given that it is not a "Nation" in the traditional sense I have proposed that we could pay out about 25% of what we have spent annually directly to tribal leaders for implementing mutually acceptable policies. This would insure that the money didn't go to the War Lords and or disappear entirely. It would also make them dependent upon us and would give us the 10 - 20 years of example setting social experts say Afghan’s will need to "reprogram" their approach to civil contracts and social behavior.
The up side for the United States is that we would save a bundle of buck and avoid thousands of civilian deaths which would slow the recruiting of new terrorists!

Yeah, no matter what Time magazine says about their motive in putting that picture on the cover with that caption, it was obvious what they were trying to do.

Disgusting stuff!

If there is a link to the Atrios article on this page, I can't find it.

The link is the word "ditto" right before the quote.

Why do people think we want to leave? The banks who run it all, especially the MIC, want perpetual war. For those supposed journalists such as Rick Stengel, just useful idiots that do their masters' bidding.
We can keep arguing all day whether we should be there or not, wherther its noble or not, but the fact is, our Americans and more so Afgahnis keep dying. Isn't nation building grand?

"Rick Stengel suggests we must stay in Afghanistan otherwise more girls will be mutilated even though we're currently in Afghanistan and poor girls are still being tragically mutilated, I don't think that's the real reason he thinks we should be there."

Anybody want to know the actual reason why the U.S. is in Afghanistan? Though the corporate-owned mainstream American media won't touch this story because they only tell you all the news that the billionaires want you to know, the B.B.C. has far more guts and reported on this as far back as 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2017044.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/...i/south_asia/2608713.stm

To make a long story short the answer is because the U.S. is trying to pacify Afghanistan enough to make it safe for building natural gas pipelines from Turkmenistan's gas fields, across Afghanistan to Pakistan and a port. Currently Turkmenistan's gas pipeline infrastructure is connected to Russia but a Turkmen-Afghan-Pakistan pipeline scheme would allow its gas to be exported from central Asia by a route that bypasses both Russia and Iran. Afghanistan is important for its location, not anything to do with the Taliban, false connections to the 9/11 false flag attack or the treatment of Afghan women. Period.

And we all need to see this,, link below, to comprehend the level of cravenness within these war-profiteering, politicians, their unholy alliances internationally, with no allegiance to the US citizens. Please share this if you can.

http://www.documentarywi...the-new-american-century