Afghanistan Video: "The Ugly of War" (Smith/The Guardian)

Sean Smith of The Guardian of London has made a 15-minute film documenting the US military experience on the frontline of the Afghanistan War in Helmand province. Smith has also posted a diary of his time with the American troops, and The Guardian has posted the video of an interview with a US medical evacuation (Medevac) crew chief on "the most traumatic mission he has ever flown":

Afghanistan: After the Wikileaks "Petraeus to Stop Corruption" (Partlow)

We've had the first phase of stories following the appearance of the 91,000 Wikileaks documents: hostility to US troops amongst villagers, even when they hate Taliban; claims of support by Pakistani intelligence services and military for Afghan insurgents; claims of support by Iran for the insurgents (countered by some analysts); revelations that some of those fighting US and NATO forces are coming in from Turkey, a member of NATO; the far-from-surprising news that the US media has been paying Afghan media to run "friendly" stories; the assertion of financial and political misdeeds by Afghan officials

Now the next phase: the US military trying to walk hand-in-hand with the media to counter a damaging story. Although Joshua Partlow of The Washington Post may have been developing this piece before the arrival of the Wikileaks documents, the timing of its appearance is more than a little interesting.

Afghanistan: What Did Wikileaks Reveal? What I Wrote in Kabul in 2005 (Shahryar)
Afghanistan: Why Wikileaks Should Not Be Plugged (Dissected News)

But there is a question, unasked in the article: since the media has featured for years the assurances of US military and politicians that they are combating corruption in Afghanistan with the outcome of "good governance", what makes this good-news prediction of an article --- even if it is headlined by the name "Petraeus" --- any different?

Partlow's article:

Every day, Gen. David H. Petraeus meets with senior NATO officials at headquarters for a 7:30 a.m. update, and at nearly every session, he returns to an issue that has bedeviled the U.S. campaign for years: Afghan corruption.

In his first month on the job, Petraeus has intensified efforts to uncover the scope and mechanics of the pervasive theft, graft and bribery in the Afghan government, examine U.S. contracting practices, and assist Afghan authorities in arresting and convicting corrupt bureaucrats, according to U.S. and NATO officials.

"It is his drumbeat that he started on Day One," said a NATO military official who participates in the morning "stand-up" meeting. Petraeus sees corruption "as an enemy. It is counter to our strategy. And it is readily apparent to me . . . there is a new sense of urgency."

The issue was also a central concern for Petraeus's predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, as the U.S. military has come to realize that its counterinsurgency goals depend on fighting corruption. NATO surveys have found that anger at corruption is the top reason Afghans support the Taliban over the government.

From police shakedowns to profits from drug trafficking, NATO officials put the yearly price tag of corruption and black-market business at $12.3 billion, just shy of Afghanistan's gross domestic product. Citing U.N. statistics, they estimate that about half of that comes from the smuggling industry and illicit taxes levied on trucks crisscrossing the country. About $2.5 billion is paid in bribes each year, stolen Afghan government revenue tops $1 billion, and billions more is pilfered from foreign aid and NATO contracts, according to a briefing prepared by NATO's anti-corruption task force.

"It has progressively gotten worse. It's at all levels," said one senior NATO official who works on corruption issues. Reversing the situation is "a moral imperative, and it's an operational imperative."

The NATO officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Turning up the pressure

Petraeus has asked his subordinates to brief him more often on progress on this front -- twice a week, instead of once -- and is considering naming a one-star general to oversee anti-corruption work. In his first three weeks in Afghanistan, Petraeus has met with President Hamid Karzai at least 20 times, and corruption has been a regular topic of discussion, the NATO officials said.

In addition to fielding two new teams in Afghanistan to study how American money is spent through reconstruction and security contracts, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is preparing a proposal that would require the Afghan government to meet anti-corruption benchmarks to receive U.S. funds.

"We expect they will live up to their commitments, and we will give them incentives to live up to their commitments," a Western diplomat said.

Read rest of article....

Afghanistan: Why Wikileaks Should Not Be Plugged (Dissected News)

Dissected News analyses the issue of Afghanistan, Wikileaks, and information on the US conduct of the war:

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, is VERY good at making headlines.  The last two leaks have justified those headlines, however, with the publication of classified information from inside the U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  (Read an Iraq War veteran’s analysis of the leaked video showing the killing of two reporters in Iraq.)

In the newest wave of leaks, more than 90,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan have been posted. The findings are sprawling: Pakistani intelligence (Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI) is supporting the Taliban, Afghanistan has become a new front for the battle between India and Pakistan, Iran is supporting militants on its border, the Karzai government is corrupt, the U.S. military has killed too many civilians, and the militants now have access to some heat-seeking missiles… in short, the war is a mess.

Afghanistan: After the Wikileaks “Petraeus to Stop Corruption” (Partlow)
Afghanistan: What Did Wikileaks Reveal? What I Wrote in Kabul in 2005 (Shahryar)

As my colleague Josh Shahryar points out, not much of this is new information.

We’ve known, for instance, that the ISI supported the Taliban in the leadup to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. We’ve also known that the Indian-Pakastani conflict in the region was complicating the effort in Afghanistan. The problem is that large portions of traditional media sources have largely ignored these developments, and thus the American public is surprised by them.  As a result, no one has been holding the U.S. government accountable for actually fixing any of these problems.

For various reasons, now that this information is coming from leaked United States intelligence, this story is finally being paid attention to. Josh suggests it’s the sexy factor, and he’s probably right.

And this is why we need people like Julian Assange.

Not that Wikileaks doesn’t have its detractors. Many people, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have condemned him for endangering national security, as well as the life and well being of people on the ground in places like Afghanistan. Assange, a zealot for the freedom of information and the American first amendment, has himself admitted that Wikileaks may wind up with “blood on our hands,” but he is convinced that the campaign for transparency will be worth the price. I’m not arguing that this point of view isn’t extreme, Assange is as radical as they come, and I’m certainly not arguing that the ones who are leaking this material haven’t broken the law (at least) and possibly their oaths of office and allegiance.

But with a situation as complicated and covered up as the developments in a place like Afghanistan, how are the common citizens of the world supposed to know what’s going on if the mainstream media doesn’t spend the resources to cover these stories, and the only ones with access to this information are under a sworn oath to keep the information secret?

Much has been made about a Washington Post report that over 800,000 people have “top secret” clearance in the U.S. intelligence circle.  Part of the problem is that there is this massive-yet-insulated community of people making our policy. If so many of our linguists (a limited and precious commodity that our educational system is failing to produce), analysts, and experts are included in this group, then a massive part of the expertise of this country is inside of the veil of secrecy. In other words, the few people who do have expertise on this part of the world have their voices shut off to anyone not inside the administration.

Read rest of article....

Afghanistan: What Did Wikileaks Reveal? What I Wrote in Kabul in 2005 (Shahryar)

Editor's Note: Josh Shahryar has promised more not-so-new revelations later in the week:

Nine years, hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of casualties later, the reality of the war in Afghanistan suddenly gets revealed...by Wikileaks.

Afghanistan: Why Wikileaks Should Not Be Plugged (Dissected News)
Afghanistan: After the Wikileaks “Petraeus to Stop Corruption” (Partlow)
Afghanistan & US Politics: National Interests and Ending the War (Mull)

Or so it seems if you were to believe all the major newspapers and broadcasters. There are steamy headlines, loud news analysts, and even louder pundits talking about these revelations. And what are these revelations? We have apparently just found out that:

*Pakistan is helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan;

*There have been more civilian casualties than announced;

*The Afghan government is corrupt and impossible to deal with;

*Afghans are slowly favoring the Taliban over the Karzai Government;

*And most importantly, the war is being lost.

The number of documents released by Wikileaks to support these points is staggering --- more than 90,000. Yet the most surprising fact is not that all these things are true, but that they have never been mysteries that needed to be revealed. Everyone apparently "knew" but had bigger fish to fry --- like Iraq (which by the way wasn’t helping al-Qaeda), Iran and its pursuit of nukes, and North Korea, minutes from unleashing doom upon us all.

But Afghanistan then, as now, was very important to one person at least. Me.

It was late November of 2005. In a dusty little office, covered in cigarette ash and alcohol stains, I was sitting behind an three-year-old laptop handed down to me by a colleague, writing at 3 a.m. I was in Kabul, Afghanistan. My country; my homeland.

I used to be a senior editor at Kabul Weekly, the nation’s largest newspaper, that attempted to cover events inside Afghanistan but rarely got any traction outside the country because the media in the "West" always thought it could rely on itself.

I churned out a story that was read by a few colleagues and some expatriates and I got a few pats on the back. A story that covered every single point that the Wikileaks documents supposedly brought to light.

Yes, we knew about Pakistan’s spy agency, InterServices Intelligence, helping Taliban and Al Qa'eda. Yes, we did know that civilians, far too many civilians, were being killed in air raids and in street shootouts. And yes, we knew of the government’s corruption, and we knew that ordinary Afghans favored the Taliban over that government. I added a couple of extra points on flaws that needed to be remedied, such as the spread of poppy cultivation and the lack of capability of the Afghan security forces.

Sadly, my editor edited out the part on government corruption because we didn’t want to be shut down. We ended up alluding to it vaguely, and I later remedied that by writing several articles on the issue, the last one published in December on EA. But everything else is there in 2005. Have a read.

Now I’d be a fool to think I’m the greatest investigative journalist in history. I don’t have any magical powers either. And Wikileaks did not send me a copy of its report 4 1/2 years in advance.

So how does someone like me come into possession of knowledge this important? Because it is right there in front of everyone to see. Then why didn’t anyone say this before? Well, they did –-- most people just chose to ignore it because Iraq was "more important".

That’s what the politicians talked about. That’s what the media covered. And yes, that’s what the general populace in the "West" cared about five years ago. If you don’t believe me, then just follow the money.

The war in Iraq has been raging for seven years: total cost $735 billion. Now, Iraq has oil and Afghanistan has no means of supporting itself except for illegal drugs. The war in Afghanistan has been raging for two years longer than the war in Iraq. So more than $735 billion invested in Afghanistan, right?

Wrong. The Afghan War has cost the US taxpayers $286 billion, a 3-to-1 inferiority v. Iraq. Less coverage and less money means one thing: less importance.

However, this does not mean that the issues I brought up weren’t brought up before. They were. Mostly by Afghan journalists, but also by some Westerners who were crazy enough to not only cover Iraq but the story in Central Asia. However, the politicians kept quiet, the media gave little air time, and, finally, the taxpayer was less informed.

Then, as if from nowhere, Wikileaks comes up with these documents and the US media has something to cover amidst the coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill, which frankly had become less than exciting.

The media wants something sensational. What better than this? The politicians are suddenly forced to answer hard questions and the taxpayers are suddenly interested.

You know what? It’s a little too late for that.

I can’t really fix what the US government does. And honestly, my attempts at publishing analyses on the situation in my own country are gently ignored by the US media most of the time in favor of American analysts who spend a few days drinking tea with Afghan warlords and lounging about the bazaars.

So if you’re a taxpayer and stumble upon me in this corner of the Web, hear me out: the war is going nowhere. A radical policy shift is needed immediately.

Pakistan has to be harshly rebuked and stopped from helping the terrorists. The Afghan government has to be replaced with a less corrupt elected government or dictator or king or something –-- something that’s better than the Taliban. And someone needs to stop the army from killing civilians. If you can force your politicians to pull that off, then you can win this war. If not, there’s another very obvious truth lying right in front of you. I’ll let you figure that one out.

Afghanistan & US Politics: National Interests and Ending the War (Mull)

Josh Mull is the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. He also writes at Rethink Afghanistan:

By now, the full implications of the data contained in the 91,000 Wikileaks files are starting to sink in. Americans have been questioning the war for some time now, and they're finally putting their foot down and demanding an end. Thousands of calls are pouring in to Congress from around the country, all demanding a NO vote on today's war funding vote, and thousands more are signing a petition declaring "the Wikileaks ‘War Logs’ are further evidence of a brutal war that’s not worth the cost. I vote, and I demand my elected officials end this war by Dec. 2011."

Afghanistan: At Least 45 Civilians Killed in Rocket Attack

Sure, war supporters gave it the old college try. The White House and other political leadership stressed that the leaks contained no new information, incidentally clearing up once and for all the confusion we had over whether they were ignorant or merely incompetent and negligent prosecutors of US foreign policy. Some even tried to deflect the argument on to Wikileaks operator Julian Assange, as if the leak coming from him --- or Paris Hilton or Spider-Man --- has anything to do with the information it contained.

But their arguments are for naught, the war is now simply indefensible. These leaks confirm and validate the criticism so far levied against the war in Afghanistan. The headline in an article by Gareth Porter, "Leaked Reports Make Afghan War Policy More Vulnerable", seems like the understatement of the century:

Among the themes that are documented, sometimes dramatically but often through bland military reports, are the seemingly casual killing of civilians away from combat situations, night raids by special forces that are often based on bad intelligence, the absence of legal constraints on the abuses of Afghan police, and the deeply rooted character of corruption among Afghan officials.

The most politically salient issue highlighted by the new documents, however, is Pakistan's political and material support for the Taliban insurgency, despite its ostensible support for U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

You could pick just one of those things Porter mentions and it could spell catastrophe for the war. Instead we have all of them. It does more than make the war policy more vulnerable, it puts any war supporting politician in Washington in serious electoral peril.

Left to their own devices, the mainstream media will craft their own stupid and obnoxious narratives about "lefty insurgencies" or "anti-incumbent fever," and this will poison the eventual policy outcome. However, if we understand the facts now, and see this as not only a US political dilemma but as part of a global anti-war movement finally winding up at President Obama's doorstep, then the US can begin to accelerate its withdrawal more responsibly than the standard media narratives might allow (Get out now! No, stay forever!).

This is not simply a reaction to a failed policy, it is an articulation of an independent vision of selfish foreign and domestic policy interests. Americans, our NATO allies, and even our progressive allies in Pakistan are all working to end the war. Domestically, political candidates who are putting ,members of Congress in electoral peril are doing so as a response to outcry from their constituents.

Elaine Marshall, candidate for Senate in North Carolina, has been a strong opponent of the President's escalation in Afghanistan. She says that, throughout her campaign she has been approached by supporters who tell her, "‘I appreciate your stance, I appreciate you talking about it, I appreciate that you’re looking at more than just the headlines." She explained in an interview with the Seminal:

I live in North Carolina, a strong military state. When you talk to people who’ve been [to war], and you understand the sacrifices folks are making, and then you look at the reason why they are stepping up to make that sacrifice, or those maybe joined before the actual situation came up and they now, because they’re good soldiers, become involved in it. In our prior engagements for the most part, we had a goal. We knew who the enemy was, we knew why we were there, we had a line drawn that we knew would be success, achievement, victory. We don’t have any of that in the war in Afghanistan.

The same is true for candidate Tommy Sowers, running for Missouri's 8th congressional district. He recently published an opinion piece questioning the President's strategy of bolstering Afghan security forces, and asking whether or not such a massive, long-term financial commitment was feasible in the economic environment. He has received high praise for his essay, as well as for his position on the war itself, as he conducted town halls across the state. He explained what he was hearing from his constituents in an interview with me and Jason Rosenbaum last week:

First, across the country, districts like this carry the burden of the war in a visceral way. When I’m in a room, I ask folks if they are veterans or if they’re related to people currently serving – it’s almost the entire room. So, on a very personal level, these people are asking, "What are we accomplishing over there?" A lot of families ask their own family members that are over there this question.

Second, on a fiscal level, this district has suffered under Republican incumbent rule in terms of infrastructure. There’s great concern about the debt, and people ask, "Why are we spending so much money over there?"

Sowers served in combat during the Iraq war, and many in Marshall's family chose to serve their country in the military, so it's clear where their personal convictions are rooted. And the overflow of public outcry and support from their constituents gives them the momentum to go from average anti-war candidates to populist juggernauts.

Did you catch Sowers' comment about "suffering under incumbent rule"? The electoral peril is not a hypothetical, it's very real. Sowers is coming directly at his opponent on this issue. He told us:

My opponent sits on the NATO parliamentary assembly, so you’d think she’d have an interest in the issue, but I’m not certain she’s even visited Afghanistan. The only thing I’ve heard from her is we need to do everything over there – more troops, more money. That’s what you get with a former lobbyists trying to influence military policy.

His opponent doesn't even have much chance to reverse her position, her hands are already all over this war. Now she's staring down the barrel of Tommy Sowers, all because she couldn't even hedge her bets on an exit timetable. She had to do the lobbyist thing and give it all away, "more troops, more money". Marshall's opponent in North Carolina is no better, refusing to fund a $32 billion one-year extension for teachers on one hand while on the other having plenty of freebie money for Wall Street and the war-makers.

It's too late to change positions or blow this off as some kind of far-left anomaly in the primaries. These folks have had their resumes scrutinized, they've won their nominations, and now they've moved on to delivering a spirited beating to their opponents.

But what happens when they do get to Washington? That's where we truly see the selfish national interests laid out. They will not simply block the war and call it a day. Marshall has talked about expanding international cooperation in terms of developing Afghanistan, as well as reforming our port/border security with an eye on counter-terrorism. Sowers also has a definite objective in mind when it comes to securing US interests in Afghanistan.

I’m a secure our nation sort of guy, an ass-kicking Democrat. I think we should pursue and kill and capture terrorists where they are. That’s the problem in Afghanistan, we’re pursuing them where they were. For every special forces team tied up training an Afghan police force that one day won’t be paid is a special forces team that can’t operate in Yemen, Pakistan or Somalia. [...]

My strategy is informed by history. We are fighting an ideology. I’ve seen first hand when I had price on my head in Iraq. But there’s ways to fight this war much more intelligently.

Look back to the history of the cold war, how did we combat that? We contained, we deterred, we used trade, aid, proxies. And we occasionally sent guys like me to kill and capture the real bad folks. Overall, we let the system collapse in on itself.

Sowers is putting forward his own strategy for fighting terrorism. I've made my reservations about that strategy clear, but these candidates are not mirror images of activist bloggers; they are independent political actors. Sowers and Marshall are not conforming to any ideological constraints. They are putting forward their own, selfish national security strategies and are backed by popular momentum.

Pakistan is where we see those same selfish interests replicated. Just as our candidates look out for the United States, Pakistanis are looking out only for their country. Take, for example, their reaction to the Wikileaks' "War Diary" confirmation of the involvement of Pakistani army and intelligence services with the insurgency. Mosharraf Zaidi writes:

Virtually no serious commentator or analyst anywhere, even those embedded deep in the armpit of the Pakistani establishment, claims that the Pakistani state was not instrumental in the creation, training and sustenance of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Given the nature of the relationship between the Pakistani state and the Afghan Taliban, one that goes right to the genetic core of the Taliban, it is hard to imagine that all ties can ever be severed. Again, for serious people, this is an issue that is done and dusted. Pakistan's state, and indeed, its society, had, has and will continue to have linkages with the Afghan Taliban. Moral judgments about these linkages are external to this fact.

These linkages do, however, deserve the scrutiny of the Pakistani parliament. If somehow, Pakistanis are involved in supporting any kind of violence against anyone, that kind of support had better be couched in a clear national security framework that articulates why it is okay for Pakistanis to underwrite such violence. Absent such a framework, the violence is illegal, and the space for speculation and innuendo about Pakistan is virtually infinite. It is that space that Pakistan's fiercest critics exploit when they generate massive headlines out of small nuggets of insignificant and stale information that implicates Pakistan in anti-US violence in Afghanistan (among other things).

Zaidi is representative of a broader progressive movement in Pakistan, the closest parallel and ally that Americans have there, and yet what is his response? It is not a call for an immediate end to Pakistan's "Strategic Depth", its support of militants, and there is no mourning the loss of American lives because of that policy. There is only acknowledgement that the relationship with militants --- specifically the Afghan Taliban ---  is deeply embedded in Pakistani society, as well as a call for the government to better articulate this relationship in a "national security framework".

Zaidi is not looking out for our best interests --- refraining from support to militants who kill American soldiers --- he's looking out for Pakistan's best interests, and that includes their historic ties to militancy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jammu & Kashmir, etc. Seems harsh, but it is a parallel to the US. When was the last time an American pundit, even a liberal one, shed a tear for the thousands of Pakistani soldiers and policemen killed doing our selfish American bidding? The answer would be never.

But there's also the actual Pakistani anti-war movement. Appealing directly to the principles of the "American Founding Fathers", the group calling itself the Coalition of Conscience put forward this list of demands:

1. The foreign presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is part of problem rather than the solution; > The coalition Governments must immediately order a cessation of all military and sting operations in the region and allow peace to be negotiated.


2. Al-Qaeda is a convenient tool to blanket all opposition to US policies in the region and impose unilateral policies; > All efforts to use this pretext to prolong the presence in the region and to pursue an international agenda other than peace must cease.


3. On going coalition operations have a fragmenting effect on both Pakistan and Afghanistan; > All coalition operations with divisive effects must be stopped.


4. The entire spectrum of violence and instability in Pakistan is a backwash from Afghanistan created by the presence of foreign forces. Support to insurgent and terrorist groups in FATA and Balochistan originate from Afghanistan. If this is not stopped, the instability will spread to other regions as well; > We demand the Government of Pakistan to make its own independent policies to ensure peace and development in the region; the mother of all civilizations.


5. Afghan movement is led by leaders who are indigenous to Afghanistan and legitimate representatives of resistance to foreign occupation; > These leaders must be treated as party to peace and brought into a comprehensive dialogue process as reflected in Pak-Afghan Jirga of 2007.


6. Failing a clear timetable from the coalition for the cessation of war; > The Government of Pakistan will be urged to exercise this nation’s legitimate right to secure its interests against all hostile bases inside Afghanistan, supporting and funding terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan.


7. In order to ensure long term stability and prosperity in the region; > The Government of Pakistan must carry forward the inconclusive negotiations of 1996 and assist all Afghans (Resistance and Northern Alliance) to mediate peace. We welcome support from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and China with no covert agendas.


8. It is not Pakistan’s responsibility to ensure logistics for coalition forces in Afghanistan knowing well that much of it is used to destabilize and terrorize Pakistanis; > This support must stop unless approved by UN and conducted under transparent international safeguards and inspections.


9. Gross violations and exercise of human rights on selective bases are widely documented; > All Pakistani prisoners kept by coalition countries, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in illegal detention centers must be brought back immediately and subjected to Pakistani courts.


10. Rendition centers, trials under duress and extra judicial killings including drones and blanket air strikes violate basic human rights; > War reparations and criminal trials of coalition leaders who have knowingly falsified evidence in support of war before their own people; their Parliaments; and before the UN Security Council must be brought before Law. All Pakistani leaders guilty of same must be tried under Pakistan laws.

The "coalition Governments" they refer to are the US and NATO allies. They are demanding "independent policies" from the Pakistani government, a reference to American interference. Most of the rest is pretty mundane, nothing you haven't seen from almost any other peace movement, Pakistani or otherwise. But make a special note of Number Six:

Failing a clear timetable from the coalition for the cessation of war; > The Government of Pakistan will be urged to exercise this nation’s legitimate right to secure its interests against all hostile bases inside Afghanistan, supporting and funding terrorism and insurgency in Pakistan.

That means war with the United States. All of our troops operating supply lines in Pakistan, all of our troops stationed in Afghanistan, all of our intelligence centers and facilities for launching drone and special forces raids --- these are what they are referring to by "all hostile bases." When I warned about the collapse of Pakistan, and our troops getting caught in the middle of it, this what I meant. From their perspective, our war is the root of their terrorism and insurgencies, and they will react to secure themselves.

This is the state of the present anti-war movement, in the United States and in Pakistan. In the US, Americans are putting forward their own policies, an end to the war, revamped port security, as well over-the-horizon counter-terrorism. In Pakistan, they are demanding an end to the war, our war, which is so destabilizing for their country.

None of this is remotely ideological or partisan, nor is it merely reactionary to the existing policy of war. It is an independent calculation of interests.

Ending the war is firmly in our national interests, and any politician who doesn't start supporting the United States will be put in serious danger of losing their seat. How long until our war supporting representatives come to be seen as puppets for Hamid Karzai and General Kayani, much the same as some Pakistani politicians are viewed as puppets of the United States?

With the leaks confirming so much of the criticism about the war, every action the supporters take is automatically drenched in blood. Every time they are voting for more war funding, they are voting for American soldiers to be killed by InterServices Inteligence and Pakistan Army operatives. Every time they vote against an exit timetable, they are voting against the economic interests of the United States.

This is what's happening as we watch the war disintegrate in front of us. The facts show that the war is destroying our economy, it is making us less safe, and continuing it will lead to even further disaster. There is no angry far left, no hippies, no anti-incumbent fever, no bleeding-heart liberals, and no wobbly pacifists. There are only Americans stepping up and taking their country back, back from the catastrophe of war, and setting it on a better path toward securing our interests at home and in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Anyone who still supports the war, after all of our facts have been confirmed by the Wikileaks release, now stands firmly against American national interests, both domestic and foreign. The consequences will be hellish come November.