Birgitta Jonsdottir is a member of the Icelandic Parliament.Birjitta along with Noam Chomsky,Chris Hedges,and Daniel Ellsberg are suing the US Govt over the NDAA (National Defence Authorisation Act)which virtually turns the West into a fascist state.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/18/suing-us-government-protect-internet-freedom

The NDAA is an Obamination.It allows the US Military to detain anyone in the West on the mere suspicion of being a terrorist,indefinitely without trial or legal representation.

Fools in this country argue about protocol,while the really big monster of fascism is about to consume us all.We live in a moronic stupor.

Hi James,

Yes, I would applaud the efforts to bring about social equality by the Tariki government, and the other Leftist governments after his assasination.

But it really is a non sequitur, to attack the US for supporting gender equality now: you would have to show that the US deliberately and consciously opposed Tariki's efforts towards social equality [rather than the presence of the Russians] to make any links, supposedy hypocritical, with their support today of gender equality.

What the US opposed - and thereby financed and trained all manner of opposition forces to oppose - was the close cooperation between Tariki and the Russians, and the eventual invasion of Afghanistan by the Russians.

If anything, since their efforts now to support women seem genuine, you and I should both be supporting those US efforts.

So often, political conflicts are much more than two-sided: there are usually more parties involved than the two main ones, each with their own agenda.

In Afghanistan, I would be prepared to suggest that even the Taliban and al Qa'ida may have different agendas, let alone those of the Northern Alliance, Hekmatyar, the Haqqanis, the US, various local groups (especially amongst the Hazaras) and genuinely democratic, even left-wing, groups. Not to mention the involvement of other countries, Pakistan, Iran, Central Asian nations like Uzbekistan, perhaps even China. The Pakistanis would like to add India to that list.

To attack the US for supporting a group at one time, and opposing it at another time, is facile, with respect.

Alliances are formed for specific purposes, which may shift and transform into something else over time. Agendas change. Alliances change. That's politics. Down and dirty.

Cheers,

Joe

I'd have to preface my remarks in response to this:
"What do I think of my country? What is there, which elevates my shoulders and stirs my blood when I hear the words, Australia":
Nothing. My blood runs cold. Australia is not a country based on anything. It's history has dried-up. Australia is a development, a good investment, an advertisement, valuable real estate, an American military base, a province of China (thinking ahead), a colonial museum.
Do I praise my country enough?
I don't understand the question; what is there to praise? Seriously, what is there to praise? It's a simple question..
"Soon many Australian troops will return home irreparably damaged".
I sympathise with the poor bastards absolutely, but they were irreparably damaged before they left (ideologically), and they'll come home and go mad because they'll finally see through all the bull-sh!t they fought for.
Yes it's time the troups came home, but it's also time we critically assessed not just our involvement, but ourselves.

>>Well there are two lessons from history - one is "don't invade Russia in the winter". And the other is "don't invade Afghanistan" - you won't win.<<

Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan and won. The NATO forces just need to refine their tactics a bit. Less tanks and cluster bombs: more Mongol horse archers.

Cheers,

Tony

@ Hasbeen. In the faint hope that you might be interested in actually improving your knowledge can I recommend you read Fitzgerald & Gould's Afghanistan's Untold Story and Peter Dale Scott's American War Machine.

Hi Joe Loudmouth. It is obviously difficult to traverse as complex a situation as Afghanistan in 350 words. Can I suggest however that your historical timeline is wrong. The US undermining of the Tariki government began before the Soviet intervention, in the 1970s, as Brezinski boasts in his book The Grand Chessboard.
My complaint against the US was not confined to its hypocrisy over women. Hypocrisy is a dominant characteristic of US foreign policy. In the case of Afghanistan my more important point was that the war is based on a lie: that Afghanistan harbored the people responsible for 9/11 (see David Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor Revisted for a comprehensive demolition of the official conspiracy theory). As I said in my original post the decision to attack was made in July 2001 when the Taliban government refused to accede to American demands to allow an American company to build the gas pipeline from the Caspian basin throught Afghanistan to a warm water port on the Arabian Sea being built by Bush's good buddy Kenny Lay of Enron.
The real reasons for the invasion were more to do with the aforesaid control of the vast oil and gas reserves of the Caspian; resurrecting the heroin trade (which the Taliban had virtually wiped out); accessing the rare earth minerals that Soviet surveys had shown existed in Afghanistan in significant quantities; and enabling the further encirclement of China as part of their declared strategy of "full spectrum dominance".
That Australia has allowed itself to be sucked into this morass, even for the likely real reason of a "security insurance policy" let alone the publically claimed reasons is nothing short of pathetic.

Jon J. if you confront someone with criticism you may make an enemy, if you show by example you may make a friend, your rational suggests that Australia should keep friendly with the biggest bully of the moment, the US of A.
Shame on you Diver Dan, Hasbeen and Chris Lewis, if you researched the subject more deeply you might come to the opposite conclusion. It is unfortunate that the people of the gulf countries are caught up in a medieval time warp, but do you honestly believe that the American military bombardment is about saving them from themselves. If the Australian people and our Government unilaterally agreed to toss American bases out of our country we would very soon see just how ugly a friend they really are. Pause for a moment and consider the US Air forces use of those wonderfully effective cluster bombs which slice living humans into unrecognisable pieces over a radius of ½ a mile. Gee! They could wipe out your whole suburb with one bomb. No! if America had kept its dirty nose out of other peoples sovereign affairs in the last 20 years far less people would have been forced into slavery and poverty on the alter of the free market ideology and millions of innocent people across the planet would not have been destroyed. Ok Aristocrat since you're “right” you tell us all the “right “ answer. James, thankyou. My point exactly. While I acknowledge that I have yet to fully understand the complexity of the global dynamic I have found that my local university and library have been mines of information. Newspapers and TV. alone give a very lopsided view of local or global affairs. “A little learning is a dang’rous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring, there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking largely sobers us again”.
DEN71