A & B. Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan. On, and perhaps very importantly, China, through the Hindu Kush.

C. That one I DID know—Stanley McChrystal. Stone killer.

D. Total wounded U.S.—”seriously injured” (unknownnews.net)—2,046. This is followed by a caveat—- “U.S. troops seriously injured in Afghanistan: To the best of our knowledge, this data is not publicly tracked (if you know a reliable source for this information, please let us know). Posted number reflects our estimate, using a conservative, historically-based ratio of 3:1 (serious injuries to fatalities) for troops.”

E. WaPo and NYT certainly don’t. This will take some digging.

F. Apparently unknown. Link: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=103651

G. Wiki: Religiously, Afghans are over 99% Muslims: approximately 74-80% Sunni and 19-25% Shi’a

H. Can’t find anything now, with various combinations of keywords.

I. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/17/60minutes/main674791.shtml

What’s been done? Apparently nothing.

J. Looks like only once, in January, BEFORE the inauguration.

K. Year to date for U.S.—298 (http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/). France—4, Germeny—5, Canada—21, Australia—4.

L. Apparently none. However, Blackwater and other private security agencies are advertising for pro athletes.

M. I’s easy to remember, but as I said in another post, with all the noise that’s being made to distract us, it’s like playing with a drummer who rushes, so you have to play strangely to make your tune (i.e., situation) sound coherent. Sometimes the details are overlooked.

Thanks for the quiz, TRA.

Timothy R. Anderson

Just to emphasize that which cannot possibly be said too often :

No question mark necessary about Tillman.
Yes, he did.

Timothy R. Anderson

In honor of it being such a long time I developed some questions
that everyone’s welcome to answer for me :

a. How many countries share a border with Afghanistan ?
b. Can you name the countries that share a border with Afghanistan ?
c. Who is the USA’s military’s ” main general ” currently in
charge of “day to day ” operations in Afghanistan ?
d. How many American military personnel have been injured
in Afghanistan since stuff started there in October 2001 ?

e. What major newspaper tells its readers how many American military
servicemembers have been wounded/injured in Afghanistan every day
that it publishes ? Any of them ? Any non-major newspapers ?
f. How many employees of private security guard businesses are
currently on Afghanistan’s soil ?
g. In Iraq, evidently, the population is segmented into different
religious factions —— Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim, Christian,
Yazidi ( sp. ? ), and others. The Shiite Muslims are, evidently,
the group with the highest population in Iraq. In Afghanistan,
which religious faction has the largest percentage of Afghanistan’s
population ? What about 2nd largest ?
h. If a non-terrorist Afghanistan citizen wants to purchase
gasoline, is the wait an average of four hours or more ? Or fewer ?
i. Will CBS television ‘s ” 60 Minutes” program dare
to investigate the likely true accusations that some
American female military servicemembers are being sexually assaulted
by some American male military servicemembers while in Afghanistan ?
And likely more combinations of genders and assaults ?
j. How many times has Vice President Biden visited Afghanistan
since he started being Vice President ?
How much money does each trip taken by an American politician
to Afghanistan cost ?
k. How many American military servicemembers have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year ? How many French military servicemembers ? How many from Germany ? How many from Canada ?
How many from Australia ?
l. A young man whose name was Tillman left his professional
football career to serve the USA’s military in Afghanistan ?
How many other professional athletes have stopped their athletic
careers to join the USA’s military ? What sports did they stop
playing ? What are their names ?
m. Is it, for the most part, easy or difficult to remember
that the USA ‘s military is involved in a war in Afghanistan
that has lasted more than seven years ?

——————–

I await answers.

Timothy R. Anderson, USA Civilian.
USA Citizen, Since 1972.

For more information,
please visit http://www.icasualties.org

As was the case with President Bush, President Obama is inept
at getting other countries’ leaders to send their military service-
members into Afghanistan and Iraq. Republicans stink at getting help.
Democrats stink at getting help.

Afghanistan’s a mess, y’all. Afghanistan was an opportunity
, all those months ago, waaaaaay back in October 2001. Now it is
a mess.

Timothy R. Anderson

( here’s a link ! )

http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan. Will it become ” Obama’s War ” ?

Timothy R. Anderson

” confident,
invincible in the bloody onset; help
them to crush the foe;
grant to them and to their flag + country
imperishable honor and glory. ”

” Then, Twain eviscerates his reader with what he
later told a friend was ‘ the whole truth. ‘

” In the person of a messenger from God ,
‘ an aged stranger .. his long body clothed in a robe
that reached to his feet .. his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale
even to ghastliness ‘ reveals the total reality of the people’s
prayers for victory :

‘ Listen ! ‘ the stranger commands ‘ O Lord, our God,
help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells ;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their
patriot dead ! Help us to drown the thunder of the guns
with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain. ‘

‘ Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of
fire. Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane
of fire ; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending
widows with unending grief ; help us to turn them out,
roofless with their little children, to wander, unfriended,
through the wastes of their desolated land, in rags + hunger +
thirst, sports of the sun, flames of summer, and the icy winds
of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee
for the refuge of the grave and denied it. ‘

‘ For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes,
blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make
heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain
the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet ! ‘

” The messenger finishes the prayer by asking for all of this
‘ in the spirit of Love Of Him Who Is The Source Of Love, and
Who Is The Ever-Faithful Refuge And Friend Of All That Are Sore
Beset And Seek His Aid With Humble And Contrite Hearts. Amen. ‘

” Driving in the final nail of irony, Twain closes the grim
parable with the messenger demanding to know whether the
congregation still desires its prayers to be answered. ”

” But no one speaks. ”

” The last sentence of Twain’s story explains: ‘ It was believed
afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense
in what he said. ‘ ”

” Accustomed to criticism despite his literary success, Twain
insisted on keeping this short story ( ” The War Prayer ” )
unpublished until after his death in 1900. ”

” As his first biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, noted in 1912,
Twain confided his reasoning to a friend : ‘ Only dead men
can tell the truth in this world. ‘ ”

” In the century since it was written, ” The War Prayer ”
has been invoked by activists during several conflicts
in which the United States Of America has engaged. Its last
major renaissance was the Vietnam War. ”

” With the memory of that landscape and those people – with
the vision of millions of besieged Afghan children, women, and men – this seems as good a time as any for
another reading. ”

source : adapted from Stephanie Salter’s column,
published nineteen days after the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks ….
Sunday, September 30, 2001.

Typed in by Timothy R. Anderson.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the folks who decide
what is NOT on American television’s ” News” may not acknowledge it, but the persons of Afghanistan are having a very, very
difficult time.

This is an adaptation of Stephanie Salter’s op.-ed. column, published
on Sunday, September 30, 2001……..

” As political satires go, it is a dark and brutal
one that begins on a deceptively positive note :

‘ It was a time of great excitement. The country was up
in arms, the war was on , in every breast burned the holy fire
of patriotism … ‘

” The place was the United States Of America; the time was 1904-1905, and the author was Mark Twain. ”

” In a short story called ‘ The War Prayer, ‘ Twain draws
his unsuspecting reader in with a rousing account of a nation
passionately headed off to war. ”

‘ Sunday morning came……the church was filled…..
With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and
envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and no brothers to send forth to the field of honor there to win for the flag
or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. ‘

” Led by a pastor, Twain’s imagined congregation prays to
‘ an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all ‘
to watch, aid, comfort, bless, and shield ‘ our noble young
soldiers ‘ and make them ‘ strong and confident , ‘

End Of Part One.

Hi everyone. Well, getting some folks here in America to discuss ……. RIGHT NOW ,anything other than New Years Eve, or Israel, or Bush, or Obama at this very moment seems kinda difficult, to be honest !

Still, a person whose last name is Williams wrote a piece that
might be interesting to look at, all of y’ all, whether it is
December 31, 2008, or January 1, 2009, or January 1, 2010 or numerous other days !

Here’s the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/afghanistan-middleeast

That’s the scoop ; thanks for reading !

Timothy R. Anderson

I don’t, as a habit, type in stuff about Vice President Cheney. I think maybe the Afghanistan War, now in its SEVENTH year,
is a prime example of where the Cheney / Rumsfeld / Bush approach is
a failed one. So, today, I type in stuff about Vice President Cheney gave an interview to Fox News, wherein he says nice stuff about
Rumsfeld. It is horrid.

Thought You Might Wanna Know,
Timothy R. Anderson