The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
There is this new thing called the Internet. They might have it in Washington D.C. Not everything on “the web” is totally accurate but it is pretty easy to see what is based in fact and what comes from the The Onion.
This Internet thing actually opens up a tsunami of information about just about anything. For example…It isn’t that hard to figure out that those that send warriors to the region of Afghanistan don’t stay very long without a lot of pain. Afghanis like to fight and they do a lot of it…
If you “Google” the term “Afghanistan history,” approximately 95,500,000 results pop up in less than .09 seconds.
Click on any of them. None paint a pretty picture. None show a history of peace. None show an empire winning any war in the region. Ever.
A sampling:
*Aryans invaded Afghanistan around 2000 BC.
*In succeeding centuries, the territory was under the control of Indo Greeks, Scythians, Kushans, White Huns and Parthians.
*Alexander the Great and his forces were defeated by Pashtun
tribesmen in the 4th century BC.
*Arabs invaded Afghanistan in 7th century and introduced Islam.
* Invasion of Afghanistan by Genghis Khan about 1219 AD. Even Genghis Khan was unable to uproot Islam, and within two generations his heirs had become Muslims.
*Afghanis fought against the British for 80 years from 1839 to 1919 and ultimately got
independence by defeating Britain.
*The Soviet Union tried to conquer the region and fled with its tail between its legs in 1989.
December 1, 2009…Declaring “our security is at stake,” President Barack Obama ordered an additional 30,000 U.S. troops into the long war in Afghanistan on Tuesday night, but balanced the buildup with a pledge to an impatient nation to begin withdrawing American forces in 18 months. When he became president last January, there were roughly 34,000 troops on the ground; there now are 71,000.
He is sending more.
Alexander the Great.
Genghis Khan.
Barack Obama?
Would someone please remind this president how to “Google” Afghanistan? And then please explain that he was supposed to be an agent of change…and not another W.
