“The Rude Guy”
Everyone who is calm and sensible is insane – Rumi

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Get out of Afghanistan

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[The Rude Guy Podcast #59 July 15, 2009]

This is Rich Zubaty, the Rude Guy. Its time for us to learn something about Afghanistan. I just saw the movie Kite Runner. Best movie I’ve seen in decades. But it made me remember, we have now had U.S. troops in Afghanistan for 8 years, twice as long as World War Two, and two years less than Vietnam So…I ordered a half dozen library books on Afghanistan and started reading. Which is what I do, and what this podcast is about. While you’re off doing your job, working to pay your rent, I’m living in my car so I don’t have to pay any rent, which gives me the time to go to the library, to learn about things, and then make podcasts about them, for you. Here’s what I found out.

Afghanistan. A country the size of Texas, is one and a half times the size of Iraq, with a million more people. Afghanistan is cut in half by the Hindu Kush mountains running east to west, with the capital city of Kabul, and the Bagram air base, plopped down on the main north/south pass through the mountains.

Estimated population: 32 million

Afghani soldiers: 140,000

U.S. and European “coalition” troops: 60,000

Total allied troops: 200,000

Taliban enemy combatants: 20,000

Stop right there.

20,000 Taliban… 200,000 well-equipped modern soldiers are fighting 20,000 guys with rifles and pickup trucks? For eight years? Twice as long as World War Two?…In a nation of 32 million people, which has supposedly been held hostage by these 20,000 extremists, for what? 15 years? That makes one Taliban for every one thousand six hundred Afghani people. In military circles it’s the rule of thumb, that it takes one soldier per forty people, to control a population. In other words, in Afghanistan, there are 40 TIMES more people, than the Taliban soldiers could effectively control. Yes, the Taliban used to run the country until we kicked them out. But the Taliban were never militarily in control. They led by religious example.

Sixty years ago Chairman Mao said: war is not a military act, war is a political action. Which means, if the people are not on your side, you can never ever win. No matter how much territory you take in the daylight, at night it reverts back to the enemy. If the people perceive you as invaders, you can never ever win. In this war, in Afghanistan, the Taliban are not the foreign invaders…WE are. We can never ever win.

The Afghani people do not trust us any more than they trusted the Russians. They view us as blue-eyed, black-skinned foot soldiers of a bastard religion. Careless, ruthless imperialists, who want to use their country as a military camp, and air base, to control the oil and gas of the Central Asian Republics, just north of Afghanistan.

The main thing we’ve achieved in Afghanistan is to drive the Taliban across the border into Pakistan and cause the evacuation of over a million Pakistanis from the Swat Valley. Total military fuck up.

There is no military solution to the war in Afghanistan, because the war in Afghanistan is not a war. Like Vietnam, it’s a police action, fought house to house, through the kitchens and back yards of a hostile population.

Only the Afghani and Pakistani people can win this conflict. Our new commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, wisely said: we have to get the Afghani people on our side. Unquote. He’s right, but this is eight years later. What the hell have we been doing there for the last 8 years? Pissing off the locals, killing their moms and sisters in accidental air strikes, and creating yet more maddened Taliban recruits. It’s the same disastrous policy that made it impossible for us to win in Vietnam. The locals hate us.

We need to supply the Afghanis with whatever they need to fight the Taliban, help them rebuild schools and hospitals and irrigation systems, declare victory, and get the fuck out. Right now! The sooner the better.

But hey! Who cares about the Afghanis? Fuck them. The real question is. What’s happening to us? What’s this war doing to us?

We pay $775,000 dollars per year, to keep one US solider in Afghanistan. Three quarters of a million dollars, per soldier, per year.

Obama just shoved through a $105 billion dollar supplemental spending bill to pay for our two wars. We spend $185 Billion dollars a year on war.

Of that we lose 40 to 50% of our money to sleazy subcontractors. Middle men of middle men of middle men, who do nothing for the war except pass along contracts and profiteer from them.

The long term cost of the Afghan war has been estimated to be $3 trillion dollars, according to Linda J. Blimes, author of…. the Three Trillion Dollar War.

And here’s what really sucks…we’ve just been told that Obama’s health care plan will cost too much: one trillion dollars over ten years. That’s $100 billion dollars a year. But we’re paying $185 billion dollars a year for war in Asia.

In other words, we can either have health care for all Americans, or unwinnable and unending war in Asia.

It’s a no-brainer. Why are we even arguing about this? Stop the war now and give us health care. Period. (more…)

CLICK HERE to listen to The Rude Guy Podcast #58

Health Care and Wall Street

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[The Rude Guy Podcast #58 July 1, 2009]

This is Rich Zubaty, the Rude Guy no more.

Gas prices where I live have gone up almost a dollar, in the past two months. How come? There’s no more demand for gas, and no shortage of it. I’ll tell ya how come. Wall Street. The same fuckwads we just bailed out – those fine folks at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley – are speculating in oil and driving the prices up. They’re paying back the bailout loans we gave them, by gouging us on gasoline. And here’s my question. Why do we even ALLOW people like this to LIVE in America. Capitalists. You extend them a helping hand, and they cut off your arm. I understand there’s a lack of capitalists in China. Let’s ship ‘em all over there. They’ll destroy that country faster than radioactive rice.

[bird]

The other day I heard Progressive Radio Host, Ed Shultz, say something very important, as he often does. Basically Ed said that if Obama doesn’t come to bat for the working people pretty soon, the Democratic Party is going to fracture, and spawn a Third Political Party, the Middle Class Party, Ed called it…and that will split the Liberal vote, so that in the next big election, the Republicans will be reborn, like resurrected zombies. Divide and conquer. And Obama will be a one-term president…And I will move to Australia or Brazil.

I think Ed Shultz is right. 76% of Americans want single payer health care. Yes, folks, let’s not candy-coat it. That’s socialized medicine. Just like England and France and Germany and Denmark and Canada and Australia have now… and have had for decades. Where the quality of their medical care is higher, and their costs are lower, than ours.

And yet President Obama just said, quote “Nobody wants…or at least I don’t want…socialized medicine like England has”. Get real Barack. As a member of the U.S. government, you already have socialized medicine! In 2003 you told us you were for it. In 2008 you told us you were for it. And now that you’re in office, suddenly you’re against it? That’s not a flip flop. That’s a flat out betrayal. A stab in the back. A campaign lie. I don’t like being lied to.

The reason other countries have beat our pants off in manufacturing, is because their manufacturers don’t have to pay for healthcare, and ours do. That’s reason enough to establish national health care here. The way out of our decade-long economic decline is by unburdening our employers of health care obligations.

England taxes stock market transactions at the rate of, one half of one per cent, and pays for national health care with the money. American taxpayers have just taken it up the ass from Wall Street, to the tune of 3 to 4 TRILLION dollars. And this is how to get our money back. This is EXACTLY how to get our money back. The timing could not be more fortuitous to link these two. Health Care and Stock Market. Tax stock market transactions and pay for national health care with the money. Just like merry old England does.

Despite what you said Mr. President, seventy six per cent of us want socialized medicine…and your job is to represent the interests of the people who elected you. Your job is to fight for national medical care…and if we lose, we’ll figure out who to blame, and kick them out of the House and Senate next time around. We’re going to accomplish this.

You’ve been in office a mere five months, and this country is already sick of your smooth-talking sellouts. (more…)