TIME MAGAZINE'S DISHONEST COVER....

The recent TIME magazine cover showing a young Afghani woman whose nose was cut off by family members in a marital dispute deliberately places the words WHAT HAPPENS IF WE LEAVE next to her picture….

At best this is duplicitous, at worst it’s a dishonest way of jacking up support for a failed conflict, a place we should have left a long time ago.

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE LEAVE is a dishonest statement because it assumes that is why we are there in the first place….We are not….The US is in Afghanistan because two planes were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center by an organization that was given safe harbor in Afghanistan.

We didn’t invade Afghanistan to free the women of Afghanistan. No matter how worthy a cause that is it is not the mandate of the US armed forces.

Second it is also dishonest because it assumes that this something the US military and NGO’s can actually fix….It cannot….This is neo conservatism at his most evangelical….You cannot force change on a culture, the beliefs of a group of people when that you are trying to change has its roots in centuries of cultural practice…..This is not Nazism a rock star like cult that used natural German subservience to authority this is something much deeper and part of that society that has surfaced in the last couple of decades because of foreign military excursions first the Russians now the Americans.

After all what about all the other countries in the Middle East not to mention Africa where women are treated this way?

This type cover is a Remember the Maine, Gulf of Tonkin propaganda tactic from a magazine run by Democratic Party loyalists….Afghanistan is an unwinnable conflict- what exactly is the goal here? At least in Vietnam there was a goal albeit not a realistic one.

As America enters into a state of constant war at different spots around the globe (Iran is coming up), we have become like the Roman Empire a distracted people are too tired, too unfocused to complain unless they themselves are affected. The only reason people aren’t in the streets about Afghanistan is because there’s no draft. The next stop on this journey is complete bankruptcy and complete military quagmire.

Here’s the original cover and article …. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007238,00.html