Obama Intends to Swap One Failed War for Another
Lately, in spite of my better judgment, I’ve found myself inflicted with a major case of “Obamania.” I cannot help but be excited at the prospect of a brilliant, younger-than-average, black president who could unite this polarized country against the failed policies of George W Bush. But each time I get optimistic that we are finally on the verge of entering a saner era, Obama makes a terribly foolish statement about the US occupation of Afghanistan.
His latest quip is a prime example: in retaliating against McCain’s attacks on his position on the Iraq war, Obama responded: “I intend to bring [the Iraq war] to an end so that we can actually start going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan like we should have been doing in the first place.”
He simply wants to swap one failed war for another: out of Iraq and into Afghanistan.
Obama, who openly says he is a “strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan,” is counting on American ignorance of the fact that since 2001 we have carried out a smaller scale version of the Iraq war in Afghanistan. In fact, in some respects Afghanistan was the testing ground for Iraq. Broaden the war in Afghanistan and you simply export the Iraq debacle to the middle of Asia.
While the scale of the two operations are vastly different, US policies in Afghanistan have shown eerily similar results to Iraq. After what seemed to be a brief period of positive change in the post-Taliban era, Afghanistan has plunged into despair once more. There has been a huge jump in suicide bombings, greater political power for fundamentalist forces, increased oppression of women, an unprecedented boom in opium production, and greater civilian deaths at US/NATO hands.
If Obama intends on pursuing a more constructive policy in Afghanistan than the current one, I’m all for it. Having studied the war in Afghanistan from its inception, I can make several recommendations including: generous funding of indigenous grassroots health, educational, and employment efforts; disarmament of US-backed criminal warlords and a war crimes tribunal to help national healing; protection of journalists and independent members of Parliament, especially women; viable and lucrative alternatives to poppy farming for local poor farmers; and of course the most important one of all: an immediate withdrawal of US/NATO combat troops with a corresponding increase in transitional UN peace-keeping forces (to remain in the country for purely security purposes until a democratic Afghanistan is ready to kick them out too).
These recommendations are not sure-fire but stand a good chance at actually helping ordinary Afghans, ending the reign of impunity enjoyed by the warlords, undermining any base of popular support enjoyed by the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda, and driving fewer people to resort to suicide bombings as a way to end a foreign occupation. Best of all, they can give real democracy a chance - the best antidote to terrorism.
Obama has not suggested any of these types of policies. He has not come even close. Instead he wants to take “the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan” by increasing the troop presence - a change that is already taking place under the Bush administration (3,200 additional troops are headed to Afghanistan this summer).
I’m not saying Americans should not vote for Obama (assuming he ends up winning the Democratic nomination). On the contrary, he and the movement that supports him represents perhaps the most viable hope of ending the Iraq war on the horizon today. What I am suggesting is that Obama’s antiwar supporters ought to be prepared for the sleight-of-hand war-swapping he has planned. They can do that best by starting right now, to hold Obama accountable for his extremely mis-guided position on Afghanistan. They can do that by guiding him firmly toward the more constructive goal of ending that war too, which in the long term will do far more to actually end terrorism.
Sonali Kolhatkar is host of Uprising, a nationally syndicated radio program and co-Director of Afghan Women’s Mission. She is co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (Seven Stories, 2006).
How’s he going to carry out a war in the hills of Pakistan when the Pakistanis don’t want us there? Are we going to invade them too? The “War on Terror” is no different than the war on drugs: destroying other peoples’ countries and cultures to protect Americans from a problem we got ourselves into. And it’s about as successful (had any problems finding drugs lately?).
Sorry Sonali, it’s all War all the time until we become, “The Former United States of America.” Obama ain’t gonna change that and as we move into a Depression greater than ‘29, as POTUS HE WILL DO NOTHING (orders from his Masters on Wall Street and the DLC Dims (owned by Wall Street) who will fuck him if he tries to take any actions for us).
Took a Repug to BK the Empire. It will take a Dim to break up the country. We get to pick which Dim will RAPE US - For the Richfilth monsters who own our entire political class. Ask Wellstone what happens to people who propose meaningful change, or anyone of a thousand martyrs “to Democracy”.
Love your show.
Pieces of 8.
Invading Afghanistan was just as illegal as invading Iraq. The myth that the Taliban wouldn’t negotiate is still prevalent among the media and public. Other than women not having to wear a Burka country wide, the place is still a hell hole of little king ships. We’ve wasted billions on the whole failed experiment, and it is another reason I’m voting third party this year.
Any Democrat running for office must unavoidably run into exactly this type of contradiction. US wars are almost never waged in the interests of the US population; they are waged on behalf of elite interests. A Dem candidate cannot please elites unless s(he) supports their wars; and cannot please most Dem voters unless he opposes the wars (at least, after the voters figure out that the war was a lie — which it almost invariably is). Therefore, all Dem candidates must pretend to be critical of the wars, yet must support them, at the same time.
The idea that the Afghanistan war is “good” while the Iraq one is “bad” is one of the deeply dishonest ways the Dems have hit upon, to try to finesse this contradiction.
Any Democrat who stood for the truth — which is that the “War on Terrorism” is a lie, all US wars are basically imperialist lies and crimes, & that what really ought to be done, is to drastically slash US military spending and dismantle this entire approach to world affairs — would get the Kucinich-Gravel-Paul-Edwards treatment. (Not that Edwards was a serious war opponent; he merely made suggestive remarks in that direction — which was enough for the machine to chew him up and spit him out.)
Republican candidates don’t face this dilemma, since they cater to the half of the population that’s so backwards & ignorant that they’re incapable of recognizing that US militarism is generally unjustified. Thus, there’s no such thing as a Republican “peace” candidate. There are only 2 kinds of candidates: Republican warmongers, and Democratic warmongers who at the same time are fake war critics.
I agree, the war in Afghanistan is as phony as the war in Iraq. It’s all about pipelines controlling the flow of the area’s resources. Then you have the covert drug trade that has grown expotentially since our troops arrival.
What you had there was the taliban [not alqueda] a creation of our own covert activities, our proxy for fighting the Soviets. Karzai apparently worked for one of our oil companies.
The righteous indignation to attack these two countries was brought about by the false flag attacks of 9/11. Compouding one wrong on top of another doesn’t solve anything. Obama buying into and furthering these flase premises doesn’t encourage me much about his insight and ability to lead.
This may very well be an Afghanistan policy that the Democrats are waiting to put into place.
It is also a way for them to look tough on “national security” while serving their Bil Oil military complex corporate masters yet appearing to oppose the Iraq occupation.
Pelosi was on Charlie Rose last night and spoke of what a “blunder” the Iraq situation was and that we had neglected the war Afghanistan in the meantime.
Wow ! “Blunder” is a pretty soft word for war crimes resulting in a million dead Iraqis, 4 million displaced Iraqis, thousands of dead Americans and more than $3 Trillion in war debt triggering inflation, the fall of the dollar and wrecking the American economy!
And last year, the freshman Senator from Montana, John Tester (Dem.) stated a similar policy saying we needed to “redouble our efforts in Afghanistan.” He was elected after opposing the Iraq war although he has voted to fund the occupation. His excuse is the favorite slogan of, “support the troops”.
But of course one of the “benchmarks” Congress has established for the Iraqi governement is to allow American oil corporations to “privatize” (actually steal) about 75% of Iraq’s oil reserves. This is pure corporate welfare paid for by our taxes and endless bloodshed.
Meanshile, the Iraqis continue to stall on the outrageous oil contract “agreements” and our troops continue to die. Keeping our troops in harms way at $3 Billion a week is called “supporting the troops”.
Looks like the Congressional whorehouse is alive and well doing very dirty work for Big Oil by implementing their plans for hegemony over Central Asian oil and gas via Afghanistan, and perhaps Iraq’s resources as well.
Don’t be surprised if the Demos are handed the Whitehouse and they only withdraw a token number of troops from Iraq and then redeploy those troops to Afghanistan ?
And even if increasing forces in Afghanistan were a just policy, some experts say it would take 400,000 troops on the ground to secure the region.
It would be a lot cheaper to simply buy the oil and gas rather than try to steal it.
While I supported going into Afghamistan in 2001, to continue it now is folly.
What election did the Taliban win? They are not like Hamas or the conservative government in Turkey.
How anyone can think that a Taliban committed to nondemocratic attacks on civilians is not a threat to Pakistan and Afghanistan is beyond me. If we don’t act, the Taliban will. Get real.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1650518,00.html
Barack Obama is not against political Islam. Barack Obama is against antidemocratic political ideology. Barack Obama is for rule of law. Barack Obama is against rules written by antidemocratic ideologies.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1628168,00.html
The United States should never surrender people to genocide. That it happens is because of either lack of political will to intervene to stop it or because it is realistically impossible to act alone to stop it. However, we should always oppose it, and not surrender the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan to Saudi billionaires.
“When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world’s most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland. ” - Barack Obama
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event&event_id=269510
“The United States is a democratic government, and democratic governments should work for democratic values across the globe. Pakistan is no exception.”- Pakistan Supreme Court Justice Rana Bhagwandas
www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html
“We must not, however, repeat the mistakes of Iraq. The solution in Afghanistan is not just military – it is political and economic. As President, I would increase our non-military aid by $1 billion. These resources should fund projects at the local level to impact ordinary Afghans, including the development of alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers. And we must seek better performance from the Afghan government, and support that performance through tough anti-corruption safeguards on aid, and increased international support to develop the rule of law across the country.
Above all, I will send a clear message: we will not repeat the mistake of the past, when we turned our back on Afghanistan following Soviet withdrawal. As 9/11 showed us, the security of Afghanistan and America is shared. And today, that security is most threatened by the al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan.
Al Qaeda terrorists train, travel, and maintain global communications in this safe-haven. The Taliban pursues a hit and run strategy, striking in Afghanistan, then skulking across the border to safety.
This is the wild frontier of our globalized world. There are wind-swept deserts and cave-dotted mountains. There are tribes that see borders as nothing more than lines on a map, and governments as forces that come and go. There are blood ties deeper than alliances of convenience, and pockets of extremism that follow religion to violence. It’s a tough place.
But that is no excuse. There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. We cannot fail to act because action is hard.
As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.
And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America’s commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists’ program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair – our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally.”- Barack Obama
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040101faessay83105/michael-scott-doran/the-saudi-paradox.html
“The Saudi Paradox”
by Michael Scott Doran
Foreign Affairs
January/February 2004
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-07-13-910579931_x.htm
“Al Qaeda Ops Show Leadership in Control”
Associated Press
USA Today
July 13, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0429-12.htm
“More Agents Track Castro Than Bin Laden”
by John Solomon
Associated Press
April 29, 2004
If anything, we should be getting back Abdul Sattar Edhi’s 3 million dollar hospital from the religious militants in Karachi. National Geographic. September 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Sattar_Edhi
http://www.edhi.org/
typos: Big Oil, Iraqi government, Meanwhile
And if you have not read this, please give it a few minutes:
What Congress Really Approved:
Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq’s Oil for US Companies
By Ann Wright
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052607Z.shtml
Excerpt:
Saturday 26 May 2007
On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it “supporting the troops.” I call it stealing Iraq’s oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The “benchmark,” or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq’s oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.
dougnwagner (1:26 - 1:51) has now spammed the board with 3 consecutive Obama commercials. A few links to Obama speeches might have been reasonable, but doug couldn’t resist blasting away with a great deal of the actual verbiage. I would guess that zero people will even read through the stuff. But it would be their loss if they failed to read it (though not for the reasons that doug posted it).
Did Obama really say that “I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again…”? If I didn’t know who said it, I might have guessed it was Bush, Giuliani or McCain. It’s the same kind of fear-mongering; the same kind of trying to make a holy war & endless national mission out of 9-11 and the “War on Terror.”
Did Obama really say that “The United States should never surrender people to genocide….“? That also sounds like something Bush or McCain might say. The statement implies that the function of the US in the world is to stand as some sort of guardian of virtue; that we have the right to intervene anywhere; and that our motivation is always noble. Needless to say, nothing could be further from the truth.
the real issue is the occupation of the ME by the anglo-american alliance. obama supports the afghan outpost, as well as the israeli outpost. iraq is just a small part of a bigger picture.
dougnwagner: We cannot save others from themselves. A democracy exists to serve the interests of its own citizens, nothing more, nothing less. When we interfere in the affairs of others we wind up where we are now: Our military strained to the breaking point, our economy crumbling, our civil liberties shredded. That’s why the founding fathers warned us about not “going abroad looking for monsters to destroy” and avoiding “entangling alliances.” They saw first hand how the interests of empire, however benign, ultimately undermine democracy.
Remember Kipling.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier OF the Queen
This is what we get for starting out by forgetting what we stood for. If Obama (vs. Nader) cannot dare to articulate the real root problems, he won’t be able to change much of anything beyond the curtains on the windows. And here’s a thought. Since the U.S. imperial machine is going to slowly bleed to death in the East rather than violently change it, the one place they do have a chance of changing is America itself—into the ultimate form of what it was born to be (in New England and Virginia colonies), a Christian Capitalist Labor Camp. We have run out of “wilderness” (Native lands) into which to run away from our terminal systemic problems, and capitalism, the ugliest human creation of all time, is not going to go down without trying to impose its own extremes wherever it can.
Obama won’t swap one war for another. That would require effort. Obama will sit in the white house, collect a paycheck, and occasionally make a ‘great speech’. He’ll be supported by the Democratic do-nothing congress and we’ll endure 4 years of stagnation. Wow it sure makes me want to go out and vote for him!
The only person with the qualifications necessary to fill the position is Nader.
“Obama, who openly says he is a ’strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan,’ is counting on American ignorance of the fact that since 2001 we have carried out a smaller scale version of the Iraq war in Afghanistan.”
Counting on the ignorance of the American people is a fairly safe wager, non?
He’s not swapping one war for another. We’re already in both countries.
I’m sure the Taliban would approve of the increase in nation building while decreasing security. It will make it easier for them to kill off the nation builders.
We will not win the war against terrorism by using the military. Using terrorism to defeat terrorism will only create more terrorism. The only way we can begin to defeat terrorism is to first defeat the policies of exploitation. First and foremost, withdraw our support for Israel’s destruction of Palestine, and work from there.
Also, we need to look toward reducing world hunger, poverty, and overpopulation. Many of these issues are interrelated, and attack the root problems which produce the symptoms of terrorism, among other negatives.
Moreover, there is nothing wrong with promoting international cooperation for catching know terrorists, but this alone won’t solve the problem.
If Nader were qualified he would have 1 million doners and have been elected to a city council by now. That’s how you build a party.
Obama is the only candidate in this race, including Kucinich, who has ever authored legislation on Single Transferable Voting.
http://fairvote.org/?page=1755
“Judge Him By His Laws”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html
Obama was right about Iraq. He was right about supporting democracy in Pakistan, and he is right about helping the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan throw off a Saudi Arabian billionaire who is a self-appointed imam advocating violent xenophobic hate of all things foreign to him.
*and Rich, for the record, which you apparently don’t read
I said “The United States should never surrender people to genocide. That it happens is because of either lack of political will to intervene to stop it or because it is realistically impossible to act alone to stop it. However, we should always oppose it, and not surrender the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan to Saudi billionaires.”
Not Obama.
However, if he did say it, I would agree.
“MASSACRES OF HAZARAS IN AFGHANISTAN”
Human Rights Watch, 2001
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghanistan/
Obama needs to support peace in Israel as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. He needs to speak up against the bloated military budget. He needs to end his support for nuclear power and “clean coal”.
I’m still going to vote for him, but I am not delusional. I hope we can push him to take better stances on these issues. I realize that we need to do more than just get him elected. We need to remain vigilant if we expect him to do the right thing. However, I do expect change and I intend to push for the change I expect.
My other option is to vote for Nader. I might still do so.
>>hold Obama accountable
Like we held Clinton or Bush accountable?
The article is great but these suggestions need to be re-considered because they are extremely unreal. The MSM and the mega-corporations control what the candidates do, raising millions and billions in weeks. Let’s get real. Vote your conscience.
The war on terror is a lie, just like the war on drugs. These are vehicles to transfer wealth from us to them, and to control us through fear, nothing more.
But it’s important to highlight this about Obama.
In the end, the system will never change until we do. If we want to hold anyone accountable, it should be ourselves and our vote — don’t vote out of fear, vote your conscience.
Actually, for those wondering how to do well in Afghanistan, the Afghans have already provided the answer. They suggested that the west buy the opium crop to make pain killers with it. It is an extremely good idea being ignored while the world has a chronic shortage of narcotics for pain. If narcotics were legalized, and addicts properly cared for, the benefits to society would be enormous. Many people don’t realize to what extent the narcotics trade feeds criminals and secret enterprises such as the CIA. This trade is a hidden source of money of use to many criminals.
Obama’s statements about Afghanistan and 9-11 at the Ohio debate really turned me off. I’d been feeling swept along by the popular wave of support, but now I don’t know. Americans are so uneducated that if you come out as a peacemaker, they think there’s something wrong with you. I still hope he prevails over Hillary (she’s a hopeless corporocrat), but my enthusiasm is down. A little more anti-imperialism would help.
All that is well and good and it may even be good for Afghanistan and its people , but it hardy serves the strategic interests of America. Only McCain knows how to deal with these people.
Would that Obama would have time to watch the documentary “American Idealist: Sargent Shriver and the War on Poverty” that aired this last week on PBS. He might hear LBJ’s end-of-life remark, “The Great Society was the woman I loved, the war was the bitch I married.”
Liberalism can never be divorced from capitalism and from the wars that drive it; the most a liberal can do is to distribute more of the profits of the ruling class with the working class in order to create the illusion of a middle class. Considered in its narrow terms, that’s not a bad thing; but liberals always wind up with expensive wars cutting into ambitious programs of assistance & they have to opt for a war or risk losing their credentials with the bankers.
The war on the Afghani people can be more easily sold as a war on fundamentalists and on al-Quaida, and someone who esteems things like human rights, education, & enlightenment can make a more plausible case that he is sincerely purusing those goals; but those were the supposed goals in Vietnam as well. One can’t simultaneously fight wars and build the sort of institutions that would justify their being fought. War-mongers want wars to continue on any pretext, while “humanitarian” interventionists land themselves in any impossible predicament, incapable of realizing that their means always undermines the ends they have in sight.
The only justification for war would be one aimed at abolishing profit-generating institutions altogether.
Sometimes out in the boonies I pass a burned out farm house with nothing left standing except the chimney.
The typical Obama supporter is a child sitting on the hearth, still waiting for Santa Claus to come down that chimney.
Dichterfreund:
“The only justification for war would be one aimed at abolishing profit-generating institutions altogether.”
Did you much prefer the Russian invasion of Afghanistan to the American sequel?
What’s with this Obamania? Why do people think he’s different? He’s a Democrat, isn’t he? And a Democrat will always be a Republican in disguise, will always start wars, will always fight for the corporations against labor, while lying to the world that he’s doing the exact opposite.
Good Article!
I think Obama will find the main reason Bush turned to Iraq instead of Afghanistan is that Iraq was easier relatively and we are gonna be there till there ain’t no money to keep um.
Obama will find that the war on terror is a racket and Lizard is right about letting them grow their Drugs legal for the world’s Medical needs.
If Obama sticks to his pledge of talkin to the enemy, he may find that with a little give and take that they are willing to not kill us if we just quit occupying their land!
But to get elected he has to act the warrior for the commander in chief role…That is until America grows outta the “we are the empire of good guys” Bull shit and join the human race!
Glad I called for a progressive cease fire, now Nader and Cynthia and Cindy better show us some Hair!
It’s impossible to know whether Obama truly buys into the appallingly puerile and simple-minded plot line, derived from comic books and James Bond flicks, that OBL is or was an arch-villain whose minions destroyed the WTC and attacked the Pentagon just as the Official Story asserts, then fled to the fastnesses of a sanctuary country.
He may have swallowed that Kool-Aid along with so many other credulous Amerikans. Or he may be “shrewdly” (but never cynically) promoting the “War” (unilateral invasion) in Afghanistan for rhetorical purposes, i.e. to reinforce his bona fides as a superior Warlord who will keep an apprehensive and chauvinistic public safe and secure from violence.
In the mendacious pseudo-culture that is modern Amerikan politics, who knows?
But it is sad and deplorable that Democrats have been so thoroughly placed on the defensive regarding their so-called “toughness” and willingness to pop a War Boner on the slightest pretext that they naturally counter this criminal maladministration’s ruthless imperialist belligerence by declaring Afghanistan a “Good War” that may justifiably be prosecuted until the US achieves “victory”.
Since politics is fundamentally a belief system, it’s always possible for the hopeful and credulous to split the difference and see Obama’s “masterful” ownership of righteous warmongering as a strategy or tactic to gain the necessary votes to win office. And then gently renounce the Amerikan tradition of wanton imperialist belligerence.
But I’ve used up my supply of ironic quotation marks, so I’ll leave it at that.
Superb analysis!
Thanks so much for posting the truth about this celebrity candidate.
TheLorax February 29th, 2008 3:06 pm
“Obama won’t swap one war for another. That would require effort. Obama will sit in the white house, collect a paycheck, and occasionally make a ‘great speech’. He’ll be supported by the Democratic do-nothing ”
I disagree. I think Obama will actually work very hard to represent corporations, the military industrial complex, the nuclear power industry and his rich donors. I don’t think he will be lazy about this. If he did that he wouldn’t get reelected.
This is one of the most intelligent articles I’ve read on CommonDreams and some of the posts have been equally lucid. Chessgames56 says it most succinctly: “Using terrorism to defeat terrorism will only create more terrorism.”
Sonali Kolhatkar’s sensible recommendations to end the U.S./NATO occupation, disarm the U.S.-backed warlords, transition to UN peace keepers, fund reconstruction, etc. certainly represent the best path to peace and security for both Afghanistan and the U.S. And, of course, illegal poppy farming could be converted to legal poppy farming — as one poster has mentioned — just as occurred in Turkey and India.
Kolhatkar also correctly points out that Obama takes an entirely opposite point of view. He openly and repeatedly vows to open a larger war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and expand the bloodshed exponentially. His stated positions are more hawkish than Hillary’s or even McCain’s.
I disagree, however, with Kolhatkar’s assessment of Obama as “perhaps the most viable hope of ending the Iraq war.” Obama’s antiwar image is based on nothing but wishful thinking and one ambivalent 2002 speech. Moreover, a new book now reveals Obama’s speech was merely a cynical, political calculation designed to attract campaign funds and support from wealthy antiwar Democrats in Chicago.
The following was posted by mdswatch, on another thread:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/28/7343/
In his 2007 book, “OBAMA: From Promise to Power”, former Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell explained why U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Obama actually decided to give his non-pacifist speech at the 2002 Chicago anti-war rally:
“The lead organizer of the downtown Chicago anti-war rally [in 2002] was Bettylu Saltzman…Saltzman, a petite woman in her early seventies at this time, was the daughter of a late Chicago-area builder, Philip Klutznick, who left a fortune to Saltzman and her five brothers. Klutznick had held top posts in the administration of…John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter…For four years, she [Saltzman] ran the Chicago-based office of Senator Paul Simon. While working for Simon, Saltzman formed a close bond with one of Simon’s chief political minds–[David] Axelrod, who had co-managed Simon’s first Senate campaign [against a U.S. Senate critic of the Israeli government’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Charles Percy]. The two would talk on the phone almost daily…By 2002, Saltzman was a major Chicago fund-raiser who could not only tap into her own wealth but had big-money connections that could help raise substantial cash for any political candidate…
“Saltzman first met Obama in 1992…Saltzman and Obama formed a lasting political friendship and she was helpful to Obama when he ran for the Illinois senate…
“So when Saltzman was assembling speakers for the anti-war rally in late October 2002, Obama came to her mind…She called him and asked him to participate in the rally…Obama…did not immediately agree, but he told Saltzman that he would think it over…
“He consulted with Shoman, still his main political adviser at the time, and Shomon told him…if Saltzman was urging him to speak, he could not refuse. Moreover, Obama was trying to draw Axelrod onto his Senate campaign team. It would not be wise to disappoint Saltzman if he wanted her to continue lobbying Axelrod on his behalf. So Obama agreed to speak…Obama made the decision to protest the impending war in part as a political calculation that he hoped would benefit him among Democrats…
“…Obama opened by announcing that he was `someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.’…Throughout the speech, Obama inserted the refrain `I don’t oppose all wars’…
“…Bettylu Saltzman was working hard. She was pulling together fund-raisers…”
Coincidentally, once Barack Obama was supposed to be representing Illinois anti-war voters as a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee not only did he not call for a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation of the pro-Israeli government lobby’s influence on U.S. foreign policy formulation (like the one the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted on U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Fulbright in the early 1960s), but he also said the following in a May 10, 2005 speech on the U.S. Senate floor:
“Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the fiscal year 2005 emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces risk their lives to defend ours…They wake up each day and do whatever it takes to leave a democratic Iraq for a free Iraqi people.
“This bill is a way for us to support these efforts. With its passage, I sincerely hope our troops will receive all the support and all the equipment they need to do their job…”
> We will not win the war against terrorism by using the military.
We will not win the war without the military. Can’t very well teach farmers if the teachers get themselves killed because the most they’re allowed to carry is a sharp shovel. Build bridges as fast you want, the Taliban will tear them down faster. It is not in the Taliban’s or al Qaida’s interest to allow the efforts attacking the ‘root causes of terrorism’ to succeed.
The first step in Afghanistan is not doing something in Israel or Sudan, it’s doing something in Afghanistan. Everyone has their pet idea. Perhaps someone should ask them.
nobody dares to enter the devil’s den.
time for pentagon to become transparent need to know ‘more much more’
about origins al qaeda where is the factory of the selfserving monster’?
we need to know more about deals between pentagon and israel before using again the infamous word. illegal immigrants being sent to bombthemselves in iraq?
i wonder
.
National borders in the region of the big mountains of Central Asia mean less than tribal boundaries. The national boundaries were largely established by British colonialism.
The area Chevron wants to build a pipeline through is the land of the Pashtun tribe. Some of it is in Afghanistan and some is in Pakistan. But the partition agreement of 1947 that set up the nation of Pakistan and divided Kashmir had a clause in it that stated that the Paki army would not be allowed in the Pashtun areas that were to become a part of the new nation of Pakistan, but rather would be policed by the Pashtuns themselves. Afghanistan has never had a central government that actually exerted authority over the Pashtun area in the sense of having laws, police, courts, etc. in those areas.
So the war we are waging is a war against the Pashtun tribe to bring the corridor that Chevron wants to use to bring Caspian oil to the Arabian Sea under the control of U.S. forces.
This is an idiotic scheme doomed to failure for many reasons. The first is the physical geography of the region. The mountains there are huge beyond the imagination unless you have visited the area. The natural corridors for transportation from the Caspian lead northward and eastward. The huge mountains to the south have always been virtually impenetrable and that is why the area remains one dominated by local tribes. The harsh environment has bred a fierce and tough people who defend their homeland to the death without question or hesitation.
Since the overlying political situation is complex, including the fact that the Pashtun area is in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is no way to “win” a war in Afghanistan that will result in control of the Pashtuns. I visited that area last summer, and, believe me, there are no markings on the ground indicating national borders. And nothing like border controls like someone from the U.S.A. might imagine. We went through many checkpoints on the roads manned by Pashtuns with AK-47s who do not wear uniforms. There is no Paki or Afghan governmental presence there, and there never will be. This is a place that is wild and nearly uninhabitable and will remain so simply by the extreme nature of geography.
I am a freelance scenic photographer and I was there working on a project on the Indus gorge and the Karakoram mountains of Balitistan. The Balti tribal area borders the Pashtun area to the north and east. We were traveling under the guidance of Balti tribesmen, and they negotiated our way through all the Pashtun roadblocks. They seem to get along reasonably well with the Pashtuns and appear to have an agreement that they will allow the Balti to bring tourists to Balitistan through the Pashtun area, understanding that tourism is an important part of the Balti economy. I would be wary to travel there unless I was riding with Balti drivers and guides.
I think Barak Obama is ignorant of the facts on the ground, as must be the executive leadership of the Chevron corporation. I don’t know if the facts will ever make it through the curtain of security and mendacity that will surround President Obama, but if he does learn more about the facts on the ground he will be forced to reevaluate his present positions about Afghanistan.
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CIA involvement in the international drug trade has been widely known for two generations. Of course opium trade exploded after they took over from the Taliban. That should not have surprised anyone.
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The people at Chevron need to realize that the Chinese have already built a pipeline through to the Caspian that follows river valleys that lead eastward from the low mountains on the east of the Caspian Basin. The Russians already have built pipelines through to the north through the low hills to the north of the Caspian.
The Chevron plan, based in stupidity and ignorance, has already been defeated. You have lost Chevron. You will never steal Caspian oil through a pipeline through the big mountains of south Central Asia. It was always a loser of an idea, and you have already lost!
Thanks for your perspective, heavyrunner. But, don’t you have your geography wrong?
Chevron’s proposed route through Turkmenistan, and far western Afghanistan and Pakistan encounters almost no mountains at all.
The “huge mountains beyond belief,” the Karakoram Mountains, are 600 miles to the east.
Surrendering people to Al Qaeda or the Taliban is not what the people of Pakistan or Afghanistan voted for. The will of the people is not evident in any of the arguments for withdrawal. I wonder why? Put down the ideology and get in touch with reality.
“I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.”
- Barack Obama
Obama’s handlers and supporters place considerable emphasis on the claim that the junior senator from Illinois has voiced a “consistent position against the war” and (by extension) the Middle East. The assertion has some technical accuracy; Obama has publicly questioned the Bush administration’s case for war since the fall of 2002. But serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given his presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.
In a recent address designed to display his foreign policy bona fides, Obama showed his continuing willingness to take seriously the claim that OIL was an effort to “impose democracy” on Iraq, even faulting the Bush administration for acting in Iraq on the basis of unrealistic “dreams of democracy and hopes for a perfect government” (Obama, “A Way Forward in Iraq,” speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs [CCGA], November 22, 2006).
Consistent with his denial and embrace of Washington’s imperial ambitions, Obama has refused to join genuinely anti-war forces in calling for a rapid and thorough withdrawal of troops and an end to the occupation of Iraq. In a critical November 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama rejected Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) call for a rapid redeployment and any notion of a timetable for withdrawal. Obama’s call for “a pragmatic solution to the real war we’re facing in Iraq” included repeated references to the need to “defeat” the “insurgency”—a goal that means continuation of the war.
Obama’s November speech to the CCGA advocates a vaguely timed Iraq “scenario” in which “U.S. forces” might remain in the occupied state for an “extended period of time.” Obama advances a “reduced but active [U.S. military] presence” that “protects logistical supply points” and “American enclaves like the Green Zone” (site of one of the largest and most heavily militarized “embassies” in history) while “sending a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in the region.” U.S. troops “remaining in Iraq” will “act as rapid reaction forces to respond to emergencies and go after terrorists.” This is part of what Obama meant when he told a fawning David Brooks that, “the U.S. may have no choice but to slog it out in Iraq.”
At one point in his CCGA oration, Obama had the audacity to say the following in support of his claim that U.S. citizens support “victory” in Iraq: “The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.”
This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site for a colossal U.S. war atrocity. Crimes included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting of ambulances and hospitals, and the practical leveling of an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah is a leading symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is a deeply provocative and insulting place for Obama to choose to highlight American sacrifice and “resolve” in the occupation of Iraq.
It gets worse. Obama has repeatedly voted to spend billions on the illegal invasion since his arrival in the U.S. Senate. He inveighs against the “Tom Hayden wing of the Democratic Party” and has told congressional Democrats they would be “playing chicken with the troops” if they dared to actually (imagine) de-fund the Cheney-Bush “war.”
He voted to confirm as Secretary of State (of all things) the mendacious war criminal Condaleeza Rice, who played a critical role in advancing the preposterous Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) claims Bush used to invade Iraq.
He distanced himself from fellow Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin when Durbin faced vicious right-wing attacks after daring to tell some basic truths about U.S. torture practices in Iraq.
Obama has repeatedly and absurdly claimed that the illegal invasion was launched with the “best of democratic intentions.”
He praises U.S. military personnel for their “unquestioning” “service” in Iraq and (despite numerous U.S. atrocities there) for “doing everything we could ever ask of them.”
His belated calls for withdrawal are hedged by numerous statements indicating that an Obama White House would maintain a significant military presence in and around Iraq for an indefinite period of time. And Obama has refused to support taking a reckless (possibly even nuclear) U.S. military assault on Iran off the table of acceptable U.S. foreign policy options.
Barack Obama reacts to the world’s response to imperialism in precisely the same way as his counterparts; he proposes more war. Obama wants to add almost one-hundred thousand new troops to the U.S. military, to alleviate the shortage of manpower that Iraq attrition has wrought. In his speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Obama gave away their destination: Waziristan. Obama wants a more aggressive approach to the so-called “war on terror,” to take “the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it.
Doug please, please stop spamming the board with Dim propaganda OK? Ironically enough I probably will end up voting for Obama but it would certainly be despite people like you, not because of your spamming actions.
BTW:
“There are tribes that see borders as nothing more than lines on a map, and governments as forces that come and go.”
Sounds pretty good to me living in the middle of the empire.