6.23.2010

Afghan War Rug

Afghanistan is often called 'the graveyard of empires'. i wonder if all those historic x-empires had days like today too. Today our fork tongued Emperor Obama had a chance to change horses, to change courses, away from his empire's headlong pony express ride over the Afghan cliff. He, being of forked tongue and cowardly character chose to replace Gen McChrystal with Gen. Petraeus, to signal no change in their stratedgy. How stupid, McChrystal's comments in the upcoming Rolling Stone offered Obama another chance, but like torture, health care, Guantanmo, Iraq, gay rights, billionaire bailouts, drilling regulations and permits, etc. Obama has still never seen an issue that couldn't be dodged by the application of his silver sounding forked tongue.

The 'Taliban', the terrorists, the evil ones, on the other end of our drones and tanks live in Afghanistan, they have for thousands of years. When the Soviet Union was trying to dominate Afghanistan our media called them Mujahadeen 'soldiers of god', we armed them, trained them, funded them. Now that NATO, and especially the Yanquis, have fallen prey to the 'Afghan Pschyosis' it's our kids dying in the mountain deserts.

They, call themselves Poshtun, there are at least 43 million of them living in the Afghan-Pakistan region. So that's 21 million males all of whom have dedicated, or will as soon as they turn 12, their lives to the ouster of the occupiers, us. The roots of Afghan traditions and art have faded into history but their craft and their zeal have not. While the Mujahadeen descendants defend their precious valleys from the same hideouts their forfathers fought off empires of those long past eras the women and children are busy in the villages weaving their world famous rugs. Income from weaving often provides Afghan villagers with the only source of hard currency they earn each year.

As you can see above Afghans use as a template for their art the important things around them.