Thursday, June 19, 2008

blinded by the Obamafication of America

Now I know most of yawl are in awe of the prospect of the first African American President in the history of these United States of America, and as well you should be. In fact it is nice seeing people being caught up in history when so many of us don’t know much about the subject. However, with the Obamafication (my own word) of America, there has been a tendency to look away from other things that are important and are historical in their own right. In fact, things that may make his presidency, if he wins in November, even more problematic and deterministic with regards to his success or failure.

This whole campaign started with hoop-la. By that I mean we were in a recession and we were engaged in war on three fronts (Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia). Yep, Somalia, but we wouldn’t know because we get our information from media magnates that we never question or even on our own, search to find out what is really going on in our world. But such is the myopia of a self-centered nation.

If you have not noticed, we don’t hear much about Afghanistan anymore. One should ask why? The way I see it, it is because we have lost ground in the country and region and because we do not want to hear such. We are happy in our frivolity of possibility without the recourse of mental anguish.

Things are hardcore in Afghanistan. Just a few years ago we were claiming victory over the Taliban because they had been removed from power and scattered into the hinterlands. We were claiming a change since we were able to install President Hamid Karzai into what we felt was a fledgling democratic government. Now true, recent reports have noted that Hundreds of Afghans (not thousands) have been holding demonstrations in support of his leadership, however we don’t know why and don’t even ask why. Namely because they are scared and don’t think he has the balls to keep the Taliban from reclaiming the country. Yep, I said it. We don’t either.

Hundreds if not thousands of Taliban have been reclaiming the country as it did before by force. A few weeks ago, like it was something out of Sun Tzu’s the art of war or the hand Book of Guerrilla warfare, the Taliban implemented a rather hep and precocious assult on Kandahar’s prison that resulted in the freeing of all the prisoners. Now not any prisoners, Taliban fighters. After this they have been able to take over a number of villages just outside of the largest city in southern Afghanistan, Kandahar, forcing US, Afghan and NATO troops to redeploy to meet the threat. Redeploying for me says two things, they did not think or expect such and that they do not have enough troops to deal with the Taliban.

So it is still on in this small poppy rich, land-locked country. But we wouldn’t know, because we are caught in to watch political play-offs and many of us would rather focus on the Obamafication aspect of this political season, than issues of war and economics – although we say otherwise. vote

142 comments: