President Barack Obama has now taken full ownership of the Afghanistan War. Gone are Washington’s pretenses that a western "coalition" was waging this conflict. Gone, too, is the comic book term, "war on terrorism," replaced by the Orwellian sobriquet, "overseas contingency operations."

Obama’s announcement last week of deeper US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan – now officially known in Washington as "Afpak" – was accompanied by a preliminary media bombardment of Pakistan for failing to be sufficiently responsive in advancing US strategic plans.

The New York Times in a front-page story last week that was clearly orchestrated by the Obama administration charged that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), has been secretly aiding Taliban and its allies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis143.html

from a quieter voice …..

The following is a modified version of the opening statement FFF president Jacob Hornberger delivered at a recent debate in New York City on Afghanistan sponsored by the Donald and Paula Smith Foundation.

With the possible exception of the war on drugs, it would be difficult to find a greater terrorist-producing machine than the U.S. government’s occupation of Afghanistan.

Think about it: For almost 8 years, they’ve been killing terrorists in that country, fulltime. Yet, today there are more terrorists than ever before. From the standpoint of a lover of big government, this is a dream come true. They kill one terrorist, they get 10 more, which means ever-increasing federal power and budgets.

Let me tell you what they’re going to say if one of those terrorists – say, a father who lost his daughter in one of those periodic bombing raids on Afghan wedding parties – comes over here and commits another act of terrorism on American soil. They’re going to say the same thing they said after 9/11 – that the anger and rage that drove that father to blow up that building had nothing to do with the fact that his daughter was killed by American bombs.

No, he doesn’t care about that, they’ll say. It’s all because he hates America for its freedom and values.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger158.html

and from the usual suspects …..

Now PM Rudd of close US ally Australia has indicated that the Australian Government will send more troops to Afghanistan: "Australia and the United States and our allies and partners and friends need a credible, long-term strategy capable of securing the strategic mission, and the strategic mission is all about denying Afghanistan as a state for free operation for terrorists to have safe haven and training grounds to launch attacks in the future."

The Australian Government’s position must be seen in the light of Australian voter opposition to war in Afghanistan as revealed by a Newspoll reported by The Australian newspaper: “nearly two-thirds of Australian voters now oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan” (The Australian, 24 March, 2009) and testament from the commander of the British forces in Occupied Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, that military victory over the Taliban is "neither feasible nor supportable", a view supported by Australian defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon.

The initial “justification” for the War on Afghanistan was refusal of the mostly Pashtun Taliban Afghan Government to hand over the US-alleged master-mind of the 9-11 atrocity, Osama bin-Laden, to the US, although the Afghan Government offered to such a hand-over to a third party, noting that the US refuses to hand over alleged US war criminals to the International Criminal Court.

http://www.countercurrents.org/polya310309.htm