Shakespeare couldn't have said it better than this picture. Let's get the %$#&@ out of Afghanistan ... NOW!!!

Almost exactly forty years ago, I landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base … and somehow am feeling déjà vu just about every time I turn on CNN, Fox Cable or MSNBC. Does anyone still around recall the insanity of Vietnam? I finally heard someone on some “All-American” panel on one of the mindless Fox Cable talking head shows bring up the obvious similarity that seems to elude what’s between the ears of most political party hacks (Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, whoever …) and even some of our military leaders who should know better.

{roughly recalled)"Historians agree that Vietnam shouldn't have happened and someone should have reined in McNamara before he led our military and country into the rice paddies and atrocities such as Mi Lai. By the time Rumsfeld had gotten us knee deep in the quicksand (both in Iraq and Afghanistan) and equally terrible atrocities--before he was finally canned by GWB--it was too late."

As I recall, Bill O'Reilly cut him off short at about that point.

We seem to be in it for the long haul—Barack H. Obama and George W. Bush have more in common than it might appear at first glance.

Consider some facts—plagiarized from The Times Standard website.

1. There are men and women in our military who remember helping the Taliban fight the Russians during their decade-long occupation of Afghanistan. We looked upon the Taliban as nationalists back then, people fighting for their freedom.
2. To prove we haven't learned our history lesson, we invaded Afghanistan and chased the Taliban out, calling them terrorists. They let our enemy Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qa'eda terrorists train there. Our politicians needed some measure of revenge for the 9/11 attack to show Americans, and the world, that we would not tolerate international terrorists.
3. So we invaded Afghanistan and put in a puppet ruler, President Hamid Karzai. Just like in Vietnam. We continued this insanity in Afghanistan by trying to westernize them. Just like Vietnam.
4. Afghanistan is a country dominated by tribal and ethnic loyalties -- and torn apart from years of civil war. Our presence there causes more harm than good. The Bush administration's strategic doctrine was to take over the country and make sure Al Qa'eda didn't have a place of safety. But for how long?
5. The Bush administration also invaded Iraq under false pretenses to get rid of a tyrant to whom we once sent money and arms. Our troops are supposed to be out of Iraq in a couple of years. It's still not entirely clear if the Iraqis want to wait that long.
6. President Obama has made Afghanistan the Pentagon's No. 1 priority since we lost a record number of troops in August. This was an obvious sign things are heating up. Now there's talk of sending even more troops into this quagmire. Earlier this year, Obama ordered 21,000 troops to go there, which will bring the total U.S. forces to 68,000 by the end of this year.

The same web-author recently said that “the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan's history." Whoever that author was also reminded his readers that "nations have been trying to conquer this country since Alexander the Great tried ... and failed." (emphasis mine)

It's time to get out of that country before we sink any deeper into the quagmire. Al Qa'eda has been fighting from the Pakistan side of the Afghan border for years. Are we planning to attack Pakistan next?

Hellfire, I remember when Osama bin Laden was receiving dialysis treatments just one wing of the hospital in Dubai from where we were holding our AA meetings. I wonder when we’ll target the American Hospital in Dubai (AHD) with one of our Predator drones … I think Osama was in the wing next to the OB ward.

That's how some Right Wing idiots define Christianity, unfortunately.

Then again, surely we won't go to war with the United Arab Emirates and messy-up those great greens and sand traps in Tiger Woods' super new golf course, will we? Uhhh ... I wouldn't bet on anything these days.

How many Americans must die in combat and how many countries must we attack before the “9-11 debt” is paid-in-full? Screwy arithmetic me thinks, now that more than 4,000 GIs have perished as “payment” for the 3,000 civilians those bastards killed eight years ago.