U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam; domestic neglect
Excerpted and edited from ANSWER by Carolyn Bennett
U.S. taxpayers experiencing devastating cuts in state and local budgets, layoffs of municipal workers, soaring tuition hikes in public colleges—all because of budget shortfalls—will see billions of their tax dollars go to fund the occupation of Afghanistan and pay the salaries of poor Afghans so they can shoot other poor Afghans.
This has been a classic divide-and-conquer tactic employed in foreign lands by colonial occupiers: attempting to break up resistance united against their invasion and occupation.
The Obama administration and military brass have taken a page from the murderous Nixon-Kissinger policy announced in 1969, the ‘Vietnamization’ plan. There had been a rising tide of anti-war sentiment within the U.S. and Nixon and the Pentagon wanted the Vietnamese to kill each other in greater numbers as a way of diminishing U.S. war dead. Millions of Vietnamese died during that war. Fifty-eight thousand U.S. military personnel died. This U.S. strategy created a tsunami in human suffering and failed to alter the outcome. Vietnamese were and Afghans are unwilling to live under foreign occupation.
Al Jazeera [AFP] reporting
AFPAK South/Central Asia
July 17
Eighteen people (estimated) died today in northwest Pakistan when people armed with assault rifles opened fire on a convoy of passenger buses. The buses were passing through the village of Char Khel in the Kurram tribal agency. In the past few years, violence in Kurram has escalated. The buses in today's incident had been travelling from the border town of Parachinar to Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan [“Deadly ambush in northwest Pakistan,” July 17, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201071752053757115.html].
July 14
Twelve NATO troops (estimated) died in a 48-hour period in southern Afghanistan. Four U.S. soldiers died when a bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan. Three died Tuesday along with five civilians and an Afghan police officer when a suicide bomb exploded at an Afghan police compound in Kandahar. Three other NATO troops died when an Afghan soldier, reportedly a ‘Taliban sympathizer,’ opened fire in Helmand province [“Five US soldiers die in Afghanistan,” July 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010714123346449802.html]
Sources
“‘Petraeus promotes civil war in Afghanistan’ ─ Statement from Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition,” Friday, July 16, 2010, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, http://www.answercoalition.org/ ; info@internationalanswer.org; National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948; Boston: 857-334-5084; New York City: 212-694-8720; Los Angeles: 213-251-1025; San Francisco: 415-821-6545; Chicago: 773-463-0311
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