OP-ED COLUMNIST
Iran’s Operative in the White House
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 20, 2007
f an 18-year-old American soldier were caught slipping obscure military paperwork to Iranian spies, he would be arrested, pilloried in the news media and tossed into prison for years.
But in fact there’s an American who has provided services of incalculably greater value to Iran in recent years. So you have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?
Consider that the Bush administration’s first major military intervention was to overthrow Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Iran’s bitter foe to the east. Then the administration toppled Iran’s even worse enemy to the west, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
You really think that’s just a coincidence? That of all 193 nations in the world, we just happen to topple the two neighboring regimes that Iran despises?
Moreover, consider how our invasion of Iraq went down. The U.S. dismantled Iraq’s army, broke the Baath Party and helped install a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad. If Iran’s ayatollahs had written the script, they couldn’t have done better — so maybe they did write the script …
We fought Iraq, and Iran won. And that’s just another coincidence?
--MORE--
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/irans-operative-in-white-house-nicholas.html
THE NEW YORK TIMES
GUEST COLUMNIST
When Less Is Best
By RORY STEWART
Published: March 20, 2007
The United States needs to be honest about what it wants from Afghanistan and what it can achieve.
Why are we in Afghanistan? Vice President Cheney talks terror, Britain focuses on narcotics. The European Union talks ‘state-building,’ others gender. On a different day, the positions seem interchangeable. Five years ago, we had a clear goal. Now we seem to be pursuing a bundle of objectives, from counterinsurgency to democratization and development, which are presented as uniform but which are in fact logically distinct and sometimes contradictory.
Finance officers in Kabul and shepherds in Kandahar want to know what we did with the $10 billion we spent in the last four years. So do any number of commentators on Afghan TV and radio. And when Helmand villagers see soldiers from countries thousands of miles away carrying guns and claiming to be only building schools, they don’t believe them.
I have noticed that many Afghans now simply assume we are engaged in a grand conspiracy. Nothing else in their minds can explain the surreal gap between our language and performance. The United States needs to be honest about what it wants from Afghanistan and what it can achieve.
--MORE--
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-less-is-best-rory-stewart.html
And More
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/38
Iran’s Operative in the White House
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 20, 2007
f an 18-year-old American soldier were caught slipping obscure military paperwork to Iranian spies, he would be arrested, pilloried in the news media and tossed into prison for years.
But in fact there’s an American who has provided services of incalculably greater value to Iran in recent years. So you have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?
Consider that the Bush administration’s first major military intervention was to overthrow Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Iran’s bitter foe to the east. Then the administration toppled Iran’s even worse enemy to the west, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
You really think that’s just a coincidence? That of all 193 nations in the world, we just happen to topple the two neighboring regimes that Iran despises?
Moreover, consider how our invasion of Iraq went down. The U.S. dismantled Iraq’s army, broke the Baath Party and helped install a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad. If Iran’s ayatollahs had written the script, they couldn’t have done better — so maybe they did write the script …
We fought Iraq, and Iran won. And that’s just another coincidence?
--MORE--
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/irans-operative-in-white-house-nicholas.html THE NEW YORK TIMES
GUEST COLUMNIST
When Less Is Best
By RORY STEWART
Published: March 20, 2007
The United States needs to be honest about what it wants from Afghanistan and what it can achieve.
Why are we in Afghanistan? Vice President Cheney talks terror, Britain focuses on narcotics. The European Union talks ‘state-building,’ others gender. On a different day, the positions seem interchangeable. Five years ago, we had a clear goal. Now we seem to be pursuing a bundle of objectives, from counterinsurgency to democratization and development, which are presented as uniform but which are in fact logically distinct and sometimes contradictory.
Finance officers in Kabul and shepherds in Kandahar want to know what we did with the $10 billion we spent in the last four years. So do any number of commentators on Afghan TV and radio. And when Helmand villagers see soldiers from countries thousands of miles away carrying guns and claiming to be only building schools, they don’t believe them.
I have noticed that many Afghans now simply assume we are engaged in a grand conspiracy. Nothing else in their minds can explain the surreal gap between our language and performance. The United States needs to be honest about what it wants from Afghanistan and what it can achieve.
--MORE--
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-less-is-best-rory-stewart.html And More
http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/ http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/ http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/38
Homepage:
