Rope-a-Dope

What do the following have in common?

• Huns (Attila)
• Greeks (Alexander the Great)
• Moguls (Genghis Khan)
• United Kingdom
• Soviet Union
• United States

This is an highly abbreviated list of the empires/countries that have tried, and failed, through military action, to subjugate the land we call Afghanistan.  As much as I would like to think that the "good ol' US of A" will end up differently, we would be ignorant to discount history.

The Afghans are a tough and resilient lot.  And much like a boxer matched against a stronger adversary, they let the strong wear themselves out - allowing the occupiers the delusion they are inflicting and weakening their enemy.  History shows that this is when occupation is at its most dangerous.

Zbigniew Brzezinski - who advised many US presidents, helped promulgate the US policy to arm the Afghan rebels against the occupying Soviets, an action whose purpose was to weaken and eventually topple the Soviet Union and the communist block.
The irony should not be lost on anyone that we are working on our 10th year of Afghan occupation, and that many of our economic woes can be directly tied to this and the Iraq wars.

In my opinion, our lame congressional leaders (and yes, president), need to get this country out of these occupations as the primary means of getting towards a balanced budget.  It is tiresome to see blowhards cut off unemployment, try to curtail benefits and help during arguably the worst economic situation since the great depression.  They parrot the same lines used by Hoover - and we all know how well he is remembered.

History grade for today's government:  F