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Technorati"What About Afghanistan?"
At the height of the Reagan Administration, it was not uncommon to see a bumper sticker promoted by the College Republicans: "What About Afghanistan?"
The implied argument was along the lines of: those who object to the Reagan Administration's efforts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua should be dismissed as hypocrites, since they are apparently unconcerned about the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
It was a silly argument. The citizens of every country have a primary responsibility to concern themselves with the crimes of their own government, and what the Soviet Union was doing in Afghanistan in no way justified what the U.S. was doing in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
But today this bumper sticker seems far more appropriate. Perhaps we can scoop some up for cheap at a College Republican remainder shop and put them on our cars.
What about Afghanistan? A majority of the U.S. population and the Congress -- like the majority of Iraqis and Iraqi parliamentarians -- want the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq by a date certain. Senator Obama, the Democratic nominee, is expected by his supporters to get the U.S. out of Iraq if he is elected President.
But about our other war, the war in Afghanistan, there is little public debate. Why not?
We know how Afghanistan and Iraq were different. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan did appear to have some relationship to the September 11 attacks. Unlike Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Taliban did have a relationship with Al Qaeda.
Legitimate questions can be raised about the justifications and international legality of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But suppose we put those arguments to one side. Even if the original U.S. invasion were justified, would that mean we must acquiesce to an open-ended U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan?
Nearly seven years after U.S. forces invaded and occupied Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government, perhaps we could consider what Afghanistan and Iraq have in common.
- U.S. soldiers are still being killed and wounded there. While fewer U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq (517 vs. 4094, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count,) if you compare deaths to forces deployed a different picture emerges. There have been 189 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in 2008 vs. 42 in Afghanistan, while there are about 150,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and about 30,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. So from the point of view of an individual soldier being deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, your chance of being killed is about the same.
- As in Iraq, in Afghanistan, civilians are regularly killed by U.S. forces in military operations that have not been authorized by the supposedly sovereign government.
- As in Iraq, in Afghanistan, citizens are detained indefinitely by U.S. forces, without the protection of internationally-recognized human rights.
- As in Iraq, U.S. military operations are justified as part of a "war on terror," but are entangled in internal political conflicts that have an ethnic and sectarian character, contributing to the belief that the objective of the U.S. is not simply to establish security in the country, but to ensure the dominance of one group or political faction over another.
- As in Iraq, current U.S. policy includes no plan or efforts for a political resolution that includes all major factions and all neighbors.
- As in Iraq, there is an open-ended commitment, no exit strategy and no plan for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
What is especially worrisome is the sense that the Democratic leadership in Congress has decreed, for domestic political purposes, that the war in Afghanistan is "the good war," regardless of how long the war goes on, and regardless of what is actually happening on the ground. In this view, it's convenient for Democrats to "triangulate," to protect themselves against the argument that they are "weak on defense" because they want to get out of Iraq by having another war they can point to which they can say they support.
That may be useful in terms of domestic politics, but it's not good policy, either from the point of view of people in Afghanistan or of military families and taxpayers in the United States.
Moreover, the continuous reinforcement of the idea that it's the "Democratic position" that the war in Afghanistan is "the good war" and beyond question stifles debate necessary to reform U.S. policies. In 2006, when Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist reasonably suggested that the war against Taliban guerillas couldn't be won militarily and that "people who call themselves Taliban" should be brought into the Afghan government, he was attacked by Democrats for trying to "cut and run." And that was the end of that discussion. Almost two years later, are we any closer to "victory" in Afghanistan, whatever that is? This week Peter Beaumont noted in the Guardian that claims that foreign forces were "routing" the Taliban "would surprise Afghans."
What is needed now, at least, is to begin public debate. And Members of Congress, if they want, know how to begin debate on such a topic. It was in a similar environment, when Members of Congress wanted to introduce into discussion a dose of politically controversial reality that wasn't being acknowledged or addressed by policy, that they formed the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.
How about an Afghanistan Study Group? It would be a start. Perhaps it could issue its report just after the November election, when there will be less temptation to spin its findings.
Robert Naiman is Senior Policy Analyst at Just Foreign Policy.
29 Comments so far
Show AllAfghanistan is a fiasco just like Iraq. We have been there nearly 7 years and still have accomplished very meager sustainable results. Sooner or later we're going to realize that we can go around invading countries and trying to remake them in our image.
@massud June 14th, 2008 8:00 pm
OK, I acknowledge that you response is worth thinking about.
I have problems with the wikipedia article. I am most surprised to see an article with the title "Allegations of CIA assistance to bin Laden". Why does this article exist? Why is it not just part of the article on bin Laden? There is no creation date, just a modification date of 21st May 2008.
I am surprised that no-one has disputed this article. No doubt some will soon.
A real problem with the article its reliance on what the US government does or does not deny. Paragraphs are prefaced with things like "The U.S. government officials and some journalists maintain ..." and "One allegation[26] not denied by the US government is that..."
Let me ask you a direct question. Dana Peroni, speaking from the Whitehouse denied that there was any effort to mislead the public, but said that they acted with the best intelligence that was available at the time. My question is, Do you believe her? Do you believe official Whitehouse statements?
The article states that "Following the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Army, the United States gave several hundred million dollars a year in aid to the Afghan Mujahideen". I understand the correct figure was around 10 billion. And where is the mention of Saudi money. I understand the Saudis matched them in dollars?
~ MASSUD ~
Your not too subtle attacks upon myself in no manner deflect the reality, and is a petty ad hominem argument and logical error. As to how education or science matters is left to you to prove.
With all that steam and smoke, and your own wiki reference actually provides more than half-dozen independent experts affirming the almost certain USA connection. Besides, there is a highly well documented connection from US-Saud, and they were admittedly involved in the conflict against the Soviets.
BTW, it's your assertion to prove the negative, so the perponderence of actual evidence, from your provided actually supports my contention, more so than your own.
The purely artificial logical "either/or" construct you assert, is pure straw-man and spuriously empty of my reality.
How Cocaine gets into this discussion appears only through your own nose.
You've trounced AS IF upon a dust mote, and I hardly care of your innuendo.
As to your "qualifications", I recall several other of your posts; or were those from your other buddy sock-puppet's ( thereby you didn't know )?
Namaste. You're lack of formal education is evident in your faulty, unscientific reasoning. To begin,
In principle, it should be on you to prove the positive, not me to prove the negative.
Similar to the 'God' Theory. It is on the theists to prove God, not the atheists to disprove him. The claim you're making is that Osama bin Laden, as an individual, received formal training from the CIA. First, you need proof that Osama bin Laden, AS AN INDIVIDUAL, actually received training DIRECTLY from the CIA. You have none. In truth, the CIA didn't even handle the training of Mujihadeen. That was done by Pakistan's ISI, or was that part of the 'real story' you forgot? Second, the training and support went to the AFGHAN fighters. Osama bin Laden was an ARAB, a member of a group of foreign fighters called Maktab al-Khadamat which HAD ITS OWN MONEY. That is, no money from the CIA or the ISI. Of course, you probably think these details are just petty, right? Outside the fact that they completely undermine the whole of the theory? You're intellectual laziness borders on dishonesty. The only reason that myth of 'Osama bin Laden trained by CIA' exists is because it fits into two things. One, the angry leftist who wants to paint a moral parable of "see what happens when we meddle in other countries" and the anti-semitic conspiracy hoot who wants to imply "9-11 was an inside job! Cocaine!" Your mossad accusation implies you belong to the latter category. In any event, I've trounced you. Come back with something CONCRETE or give up on your lying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden#Agreements
~ MASSUD ~ ___ ( at 10:24 am )
Your denial of "Bin Laden was not a CIA operative" is so lame, that only a MOSSAD agent provocateur might say such pure unmitigated crap.
If you're so certain of this many times proven "fact", please do provide us chapter and verse, otherwise, your perverse sense of truth is needed down in Houston ( right ? ).
Does the real story behind "Charlie's War" ring any bells for you?
Regardless,
Namaste
Regarding Robert Naiman's suggestion for an Afghanistan Study Group Report. There was a report by an ASG released in January by the Center for the Study of the Presidency:
http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Afghan_Study_Group_final.pdf
The ASG included at least one person involved in the Iraq Study Group (James Dobbins, a former US Special Envoy to post-invasion Afghanistan, and now of the RAND Corporation. Dobbins was, coincidently, influential in the Iraq Study Group's recommendation for the US to pursue what has become "leveraged diplomacy" with Iran).
The ASG's main argument was that Iraq and Afghanistan should be "decoupled" from one another, an idea seen everywhere in this debate lately. Congress, for instance, recently considered, but decided against, seperating funding for OEF and OIF.
The ASG's idea of "decoupling" works in tandem with "regionalization", an idea promoted late last year by the Chatham House think tank in Britain. "Regionalization" says that Afghansitan and Pakistan are one war and should be approached as one war. We also see this today in the debate on Pakistan, which has, like Afghanistan, somehow assumed the aura of a "good war".
On "regionalization", see: Noetzel, Timo- Scheipers, Sibylle. "Coalition Warfare in Afghanistan: Burden Sharing or Disunity", Chatham House, October, 2007
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/9878_bp1007afghanistan.pdf
"...what the Soviet Union was doing in Afghanistan in no way justified what the U.S. was doing in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala."
Or lots of other countries.
All war is wrong, no matter what it's called, what form it takes, or when it takes place: past, present, and the ones that will happen in the future. The mass, organized slaughter of human beings, whether by governments or non-government groups called terrorists by government or patriots by themselves, is WRONG. Furthermore, that people use persons of peace and organizations that are supposed to be peaceful, or claim they are, as justifications for slaughtering this, that or the other group, when it's really institutionalized hatred and prejudice is simply horrifying. It's got to end!
chrisB;
Bin Laden was not a CIA operative. That's a myth which had been descredited times over.
here in the UK.
one of the most eye brow raising statements made by Margeret Thatcher was that she wanted to "make socialism impossible in the UK"
she wanted to so dismantle and remodel the political and economic infrastructure of the United Kingdom that any attempt to revert to more socialist methods of government after her "regime" had been removed from power would become un-workable and even unplatable to the electorate...
she achieved this almost perfectly....so much so that even mentioning the word /concept of socialism meets with bemused stares...confused giggling and even fear..
regardless of any personal view for or against the ideals of socialism..to make such ideals "impossible", in a country where the government is meant to reflect the wishes desires and ideals of the population, is to undermine the public freedom of expression and right to chose it's own future
what it is is the inversion of the concept of government..it makes more sense for the government to make the public reflect the needs wishes and ideals of the government....hence the "media brainwashing" we have all recieved...oh yeah we go thru all the theatre of one political party agrueing with the others...we pretend that they have different points of view etc etc..but no-one in their right mind believes deep down there is any genuine distance between one party and another when it comes down to policy...
this is the achilles heel of democracy....it is the cynical exploitation of the very concept that makes democracy a desirable system..ie..one man one vote .. doesn't matter if you are a Lord or a serf....your vote on polling day counts the same and is anonymous....but of course if we borrow a phrase from Pink Floyd
"don't worry we will tell you what to dream"
then it's nothing more than mass produced conciousnous
"welcome to the machine" so to speak..
the rich and powerfull are Junkies...they are never satisfied...and thats the horror of it...the average citizen understands that the rich and powerfull don't really give a hoot about the poor...but when the rich and powerful realise that they cannot assuage their addiction to power and money by the normal means..then they start behaving like any other addict...they start to lie and steal and cheat and sacrifice their higher reasoning to feed their addiction by any means neccesary.....
the addiction to power and wealth is the most dangerous addiction of all....
and you don't want an addict running the country..when the only reason he/she wants to run the country is to feed their addiction
Afghanistan/Pakistan is in metastasis and will be far less easy to "resolve" even than Iraq. Team Bush went into Afghanistan promising to democratize the nation, rebuild its economy and make it a beacon of freedom to the region--just like they promised for Iraq. But, in neither case, was there ever anything more than a cursory plan for garrisoning failed States in order to control pipelines and resources. The "rebuilding efforts" in Iraq were a sad pantomime of an authentic occupation plan--another contractor giveaway masquerading as U.S. altruism for domestic U.S. consumption.
Our Pentagon, which was bloated and corrupt prior to the Bush-Cheney Junta and whose corruption has intensified under the neo-cons sufficient to render it a vomitorium of obscenity is increasingly "managing" U.S. diplomacy at the expense of the old guard in the State Department. This is in order to eliminate diplomacy altogether and replace it with foreign aggression and domestic propaganda about diplomatic overtures that are ALL military shell games (pun intended).
Writers have recently bemoaned how difficult it will be for reform-minded members of any new presidential administration to return all the neo-con poisoned Cabinent-level agencies to functioning entities based more on professional career leadership, science, careful analysis, historical legal precedence, policy planning and implementation than on political appointee interference and partisan cronyism. Nowhere is this challenge more colossal than the screaming need to re-control our now thoroughly run amok, dangerously over-privatized military-industrial complex.
This complex is now incestuous with private intelligence gathering and armed mercenary firms (each with their own corporate bottom-line milking U.S. tax dollars for all they can get) whose methods proliferate in dark shadows outside the rule of any law or oversight of any Congress or Parliament. A global form of private Praetorium Guard may be inevitable. Their armed & aggressive fossil fuel agenda helped make oil dynasty scions like Bush & Cheney and it may soon violently unmake presidents (or potential presidents) and other world leaders on a more frequent and bold basis. I still ponder the Bhutto assassination and the neo-cons' & Pentagon's bizarre relationship with Pervez Mushmouth (who has always brought to mind some bastard offspring of Gomez Addams of Addams Family fame).
The real crime is that the American masses STILL do not understand--or want to understand--that their militarized Oligarchy treats the millions of citizens of these countries--their lives, their children, their future--as expendable. The depleted uranium contamination stories leaking out of Afghanistan and Iraq are horrible enough proof of that unto themselves, let alone the countless news accounts of "collateral damage" caused by use of heavy ordinance in densely populated areas.
There was an article in my local paper a couple of weeks back showing U.S. Marines on the U.S. tax-payer dime patrolling and PROTECTING poppy fields in Afghanistan. 25 years ago such imagery would have been all over the network news. CBS 60 Minutes would've dedicated an entire segment to it. Now it's just military-industrial complex business-as-usual. They just had the largest hashish bust in Afghan history the other day: 464,000 pounds worth. I do not find it possible that our spooks and mercenaries don't have their tentacles all in this.
That all said, and Idiot-Amurka being as lame-brained as it is--even though the U.S. created, funded and armed the Mujahadin that morphed into Al Quaeda that married into the Taliban--the result, because of their proximity to the nuclear turkey shoot that is Pakistan vs. India, represents an actual national security threat to the drooling masses in the U.S. and the more aware citizens of Britain. But don't look to the U.S. for intelligent leadership on how to resolve this nightmare. Britain, maybe. Hope for some intelligent leadership from Russia, perhaps.
The sad fact is that Bush's "Amurka" is no longer capable of functioning as the world's sole superpower in any competent leadership sense because its politicians owe their primary allegiance to the corporate Oligarchs more so than to any interest in the general welfare of its citizens or in the shared interest of the community of nations. But, alas, neither Russia nor China is yet ready to take up the mantle of world leadership, and what follows the imminent economic demise of Empire Amurka is likely to be worse, if not much worse.
"Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan did appear to have some relationship to the September 11 attacks."
The English did appear to have some relationship to imperial conquests these last 300 years. Its time to nuke London. We can attribute a few fried Englishmen to collateral damage and be done with it. And so the logic goes ...
What do the people of Afghanistan have to do with anything ? The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are our creations, our Frankensteins. Unless you are a died in the wool imperialist you cannot justify the invasion of Afghanistan.
We are beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, now it is time to think about enduring bases and the occupation with the support of yet another new government in Pakistan.
Interestingly, US military internal documents describe President Karzai's brother as someone who "receives money from drug lords as bribe to facilitate their work and movement."
A few things.
-If possible, see the brilliant movie "Buddha Collapsed out of Shame" By Hanna Makhmalbaf to see what has become of Afghanistan, and how the US pervades all aspects of what remains of society there, even though we never see any soldiers.
-Under the Taliban, along with all of their known bad things, including destroying the Bamiyan statues, Afghanistan had almost completely destroyed the heroin trade and had also made it safe to travel away from one's home to neighboring areas. Possible reasons for the populace to give them some level of support?
My understanding is that under Karzai and the US forces, (or do I need to make that NATO?), neither of those two positives exist, and many if not all of the bad things the Taliban were responsible for, are back in force without them.
-Before the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban, (of course, after their visit to the Crawford ranch (before 9/11)), offered to turn Bin Laden over to a neutral country for trial. This, the US recognized, was a clear sign that the Taliban were harboring Bin Laden, and that they deserved to be overthrown and their country destroyed. Hard to fault logic like that!
I have not read of any evidence that factually connects anyone in Afghanistan with the events of 9/11/2001. And I am quite sure that is because none has been forthcoming.
The C.I.A. has been deep in the drug trade since Laos and the days of Air America, so it should be no surprise that heroin trade exploded after the C.I.A. arrived.
UNOCAL, now Chevron, wants to build a pipeline from the Caspian Basin the the Arabian Sea. The route they ignorantly chose for this project runs through the Pashtun tribes' homeland which straddles the artificial border the British set up between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pashtuns are not willing to be partners with Chevron, so they must be taught "democracy" in the gunsights of pilotless aircraft firing Hellfire missiles. Negroponte, (Mr. Death Squad), has been there, but so far the new elected Pakistani government has not agreed to the idea.
Even if 9/11/2001 was not an inside job, it was never more than cover for the stupid Corporate/Fascist plans to get their fangs into Caspian Basin oil by transporting it in a pipeline over the Hindu Kush through the Pashtun tribal area.
Those plans are not just evil, they are idiotic. No outside force will ever dominate the incredibly rugged terrain of the Pashtuns. It isn't going to happen.
Obama better figure that out fast, or he is going to have a failed Presidency.
According to sources, the Taliban is financed by heroin produced by tribal farmers. The farmers claim that they would be financially ruined if they don't raise poppies. Why don't American troops, armed with Roundup destroy the poppies and then compensate the farmers. Total compensation shouldn't cost as much as one Hummer. Certainly our military is strong enough to protect a few farmers. I think that dubet is right. I think Afghanistan is all about drugs, just like Iraq is all about oil. I think the CIA or Blackwater is actually the drug lord.
As for Laura's visit, maybe W needed a nice fresh fix.
Wasn't Laura Bush just over in Afghanistan touting America's success?
"BRUSSELS, Belgium - It's a grim gauge of U.S. wars going in opposite directions: American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan in May passed the monthly toll in Iraq for the first time."
Doesn't Afghanistan produce, like, 95% of the world's highly desirable and highly illegal, and therefore highly expensive, heroine? Who's keeping it illegal, and therefore expensive? Could it be us? Who's selling it and spending the money? Could it be us? What's the money being spent on? Could it be secret and treacherous weaponry, operations and infrastructure? Seems like pretty clear motivation to me...
I have never fully understood it - how so many people who righteously believe that Iraq was an illegal and inexcusable invasion of a sovereign nation seem to efortlessly cheer on the debacle that is our presence in Afghanistan. It's like there's twins - and we know that one of them is going to die - they're both evil, but one a little less so because so little is known about him/her, so maybe he/she will turn out to be a "winner" after we do away with the other one.
Ignoring the wholesale corruption that we have financed there, the record poppy growing, the ongoing pandering to criminal warlords...the continued slaughter of its citizens. Sure, that looks like a winner.
Even many of my most progressive and relatively well informed colleagues seems to think that the war in Afghanistan was justifiable and our continued presence there is going to pay off somehow. I never have and I never will, and I'm embarrased to say I've been horribly right about everything that has transpired in the Iraq war all along. Doubt that it will be any different in Afghanistan - another losing losing proposition all the way.
The Taliban govt of Afghanistan , when asked to turn bin Laden over to us, stated a willingness to give him up, to a nation that was neutral and with the proviso that there would be no death sentence administered if he was found to be guilty. Sounded reasonable to me at the time and still does now.
The point of invasion of both nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, was excused by the lies and distortions of the events of 9/11 but had little to do with those events and much more to do with inserting US military into a volatile and increasingly important middle east.
That noone, not even the most powerful military on the planet, can win such a war, in either place, is continually overlooked. Thus we are doomed to repeat the past. Senator Obama has stated publically that he is in favor of increasing our efforts in Afghanistan and spreading this war to Pakistan.
Dont blame me Im voting for Ralph!
These neocons do not want to ever leave Afghanistan because:
a. then China could build their pipeline into Iran
b. we could no longer park parts of our missile defense in russia and china's backyard... we have created a reverse cuban missile crisis... and that's why Putin has taken his TU-95 Bear Bombers out of mothballs and started flying them towards us again.
c. it ain't about cave dwellers. don't drink the kool-aid.
re chrisB 3:23pm
"...quite naturaly the Taliban didn't forget that Bin Laden had helped them and thusly remained supportive…no doubt in spite of pressure to hand him over to the US….."
as i remember, the taliban were asked to hand over bin laden. they replied that they'd be glad to do so if they were shown evidence that he was involved in any way with the events of 9/11. they received no such evidence because none exists.
This Hillary video might be relevant to this situation...
Hillary Video
It might of some interest to listen to an Afghan woman's views on "B52 democracy" in her country.
We know how Afghanistan and Iraq were different. Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan did appear to have some relationship to the September 11 attacks. Unlike Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Taliban did have a relationship with Al Qaeda.
yes in that Bin Laden was trained by the CIA to assist the Taliban in their glorious fight to liberate Afghanistan from the Russians..when the Russains left quite naturaly the Taliban didn't forget that Bin Laden had helped them and thusly remained supportive...no doubt in spite of pressure to hand him over to the US.....
gee must be nice to have friends eh?
so the invasion of Afghanistan was justified because the local Afghan rulers had accepted support from a CIA trained operative who had served US interests in fighting of america's favourite enemy the "Ruskies" the "red peril" "those damn commies" etc...not their fault if that same CIA trained operative had "other ideas" if indeed he did have "other ideas"... what was it some-one once said "you don't get to leave the CIA"
if nothing else it says clearly that you cannot trust the US for a micro second..and that it is far far FAR better for you and your country to have absolutely nothing to do with them at all..if they offer help.....run like mad...beware of strangers bearing gifts ...as the other old saying goes.."white man he speaks with forked tongue"
perhaps i should add the proviso that "the view expressed here do not neccesarily reflect those of the management" lol
ho hum
As in the previous article... it is Obama who says he will eliminate "all permenant bases" in Iraq which in terms of double-speak we all know now means diddly..nothing. So if the question about Afghanistan remains, it is primarily as part of the military vice (real-politic a la Machaevelli) policy with Iraq on the West, Afghanistan on the East and Iran in the choke-hold position, that is in the middle.
"What About ... ?"
Nobody has a bumper big enough to list all the democracies America has overthrown.
Afghanistan and Iraq, will do to our "Evil Empire", what it did to the Soviet "Evil Empire" - drain our economy until we can no longer financially support our empire.
Osama know this - Obama doesn't get it. Obama wishes to transfer forces from Iraq to Afghanistan. He wishes to be America's Gorbachev. Too bad.
We must remove our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. The sooner the better.
There really is no such thing as a "good" war. This piece by Chris Hedges, published on this site a couple weeks ago, paints as good a picture of the reality of war as anything anyone has written in a long time. I don't think it was widely read enough, so I am reposting the link here.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/04/9407/