Afghanistan: Oh, Really?

This is what a minister from a failing (and corrupted) government does in order to ensure that the same government he is part of will be kept propped up by those with the weapons and the big money:

Afghan Foreign Minister Says ‘The Majority Of Afghans Still Support’ International Troop Presence

A recent ABC/BBC/ARD poll released earlier this month found that Afghans’ support of U.S. and NATO forces’ efforts in that nation is tumbling. Just 47 percent said they had a favorable view of the United States, down from 83 percent in 2005. Only 37 percent said that most people in their area support NATO and the International Security Assistance Force; 67 percent supported ISAF in 2006.

Today, ThinkProgress interviewed Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta. We asked him about the poll’s grim findings and how NATO and the Afghan government “can win back the hearts and minds of the Afghan civilians.” Spanta disputed the poll’s results, claiming that a majority of Afghans still support the U.S.-led international coalition:

SPANTA: Now, this is the opinion to places that you ask the people, the ordinary Afghans, the majority of all the Afghans still support the presence of the international community because they believe that the international community came to Afghanistan after two and a half decades of tyranny in my country…and the international community brought us liberation. This is still the perception of the people of Afghanistan

(...) Spanta later said that Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Gen. David McKiernan, top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, have agreed that Afghan forces will be more “involved” in the “preparation [and] implantation of military action on operations,” including “arresting Afghans in house searching” to ensure more respect for the culture of Afghans.

Funny - Spanta's claim of a "majority of Afghans" sounds quite similar to any claims by news personalities and/or political hacks that whatever their opinions are, they are shared by a "majority of (insert nationality)" (some examples to be found here).

It is gratuitous lip service that is meant, in the current specific case, to ensure a continuous flow of money - at the very least (one example here). And never you mind that this runs counter not only to actual polling data, but to reality itself - to whit:

Afghanistan victory unlikely, says DND manual

Still No Rights for Bagram Prisoners

High Value Terrorist...Children

At Least 20 Killed in Twin US Attacks in Waziristan

Kabul's rift with the US widens

How we lost Afghanistan

New Afghan civilian deaths probe

No light at end of Afghan tunnel

Nato chief faults Afghan leaders

Clashes, motorbike bomb kill 32 in Afghanistan

Nato is deeper in its Afghan mire than Russia ever was

Afghanistan: a misread war

Afghanistan mission to last decades

And I could go on and on and on ...

FUBAR, anyone?

And here in Canada, we'll just keep on running the expense clock of this meaningless quagmire.

Does anyone here other than me catch that bitter, nauseating smell hovering all about?

Smells like incompetence to me ...