Edit: Just in case you don't feel like reading through Greenwald a day after last night's Great Patriotic Pummeling, here's the killer paragraphs:
In The Guardian yesterday, the courageous Malalai Joya -- who might actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize -- explains why escalation and ongoing occupation are so devastating for her country.
And on that note: Obama is scheduled to receive his Nobel Peace Prize next week in Oslo. No matter your views on Afghanistan, and no matter your views on whether he deserved the Prize, is there anyone who disputes that there is some obvious tension between his escalating this war and his receiving this Prize? Unless one believes that War is Peace, how could there not be?
Joya writes:
After eight years of war, the situation is as bad as ever for ordinary Afghans, and women in particular. The reality is that only the drug traffickers and warlords have been helped under this corrupt and illegitimate Karzai government. Karzai's promises of reform are laughable. His own vice-president is the notorious warlord Fahim, whom Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch describes as "one of the most notorious warlords in the country, with the blood of many Afghans on his hands".
Transparency International reports that this regime is the second most corrupt in the world. The UN Development Programme reports Afghanistan is second last – 181st out of 182 countries – in terms of human development. That is why we no longer want this kind of "help" from the west.
I'm sure it will be an inspiring speech tonight, though.
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