Sunday, August 4, 2019

To me, it's like the Twlight Zone when I think of 2001, when George W. Bush started a war explicitly in response to terrorism. War in response to terrorism? War IS terrorism. It's terrorism on steroids.  Think about the illogic of it; responding to the killing of innocents by killing many times more innocents. It's lunacy. And that would have been true even if the claims they were making about Osama bin laden and the Taliban were true. Of course, they were false, as Fatty bin laden attests. 

Here is an article from the BBC from January 2002 which reports even by that early date, the civilian death toll in Afghanistan had exceeded the number of people killed on 9/11.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1740538.stm  

This is what Professor Marjorie Cohen said in 2001, and she was the President of the National Lawyer's Guild and professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law.


"The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of US law. Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men – 15 from Saudi Arabia – did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the US or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is illegal."

Fast forward to today, where the Trumpsters are trying to put the Taliban back in power. Of course, they would have to work with the current Afghan government, which the Taliban has said they will never do. And how exactly could it happen anyway? Is it that the Taliban would get to run for office in elections? Ha, ha, ha. I have to laugh; like they're going to settle for that. Or is it that Ghani is supposed to start appointing Taliban to government positions? The only thing that might work is if the current government dissolves, but some of its officials declare loyalty to the Taliban and Islam, as they perceive it, and apply for positions in the new government. But, how could we sell that as anything but complete capitulation? Despite the many positive statements,  there is really nothing to rest hope on that the Taliban and the current government are going to be singing Kumbaya.  If only we had a time machine in which we could go back  to 2001 and  yell, "STOP!" 



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