visualization aids in learning

Info from the Wikileaks Afghan War Diaries.
(thanks to Casual Entropy for the link)


the original, higer-resolution version of this video is set to Iron Maiden's "Run To The Hills."
for those unfamiliar, that's a song by the heavy metal band about the genocidal Indian Wars of the 1800s.
which wouldn't be so bad if the youtubes didn't keep urging me to buy the MP3 on itunes, and present me with popup ads about designer shoes. moreover, it's worth mentioning that, to this day, standard US military parlance refers to all territory not under US or Allied control as "Indian Country."

the obvious

< stating it >
although it's been said,
many times, many ways,
bear with me.

because now that everyone else has said it,
it's worth saying again.

we are not doing anyone any favors by continuing to occupy Afghanistan.
No wait, let me rephrase that. We, the taxpayers who fund the US military, have actually allowed our employees to do many favors, for many people. Many of these people are in the Pakistani military, including the Directorate For Inter-Services Intelligence, and the Taliban.

To whatever more abstracted degree support for the Taliban has been enabled by US drone attacks which predictably kill civilians and destroy towns, to whatever degree our strategy has transformed the embattled ruling cadre of the Talib into an ethnic Pashtun nationalist anti-occupation insurgency, the fact remains.

We Fund The Taliban. No past tense. We're doing it right now. We give money to warlords, they give it to the Taliban. We give money to Pakistan, they give it to the Taliban. The Occupation Funds The Taliban.

We can, and clearly do, pretend otherwise.
It's not that it's so glaringly obvious, or so embarrassingly well established as to be impossible to ignore.
It is well within our power to keep ignoring the old information. I have total confidence that we can continue to do so, while simultaneously dismissing new information as "nothing new."

We can keep doing it until we lose.
< / stating it >