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War Propaganda from Afghanistan
The New York Times yesterday excitedly declared that the imminent Battle of Kandahar "has become the make-or-break offensive of the eight-and-half-year [Afghanistan] war" and is "the pivotal test of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy." As Atrios suggests, there never is any such thing as "make-or-break" because we never leave no matter how completely our war and occupation efforts fail. That's what led to the countless Friedman Units of the Iraq War: the endless proclamations that The Next Six Months will be Decisive, only to be repeated at the end of the six-month period of failure as though the prior one never happened.
Just consider what's being said now about how the Kandahar offensive is the "make-or-break" battle of the war and the "pivotal test" for Obama's war strategy by comparing it to what was said a mere two months ago about the now clearly failing assault on Marjah:
Times of London, February 13, 2010:
Allied troops launched a major offensive into Afghanistan's most violent province last night, in a key part of President Obama's push to seize control of the Taleban's last big stronghold. . . . If it fails, many analysts believe that the war will be lost.
The Independent declared on February 9, 2010, that General McChrystal wants the Marjah offensive to "be one of the most significant in the country since the fall of the Taliban in 2001" and, of Obama's war strategy, said that "Marjah looks like being its first major -- and possibly decisive -- test." The BBC quoted a NATO official who proclaimed that Marjah "was 'probably the definitive operation' of the counter-insurgency strategy" and "this operation could potentially define the tipping point, the crucial momentum aspect in the counter-insurgency." Time helpfully informed us that "U.S. officials believe it will mark a turning point in the war."
Now that that "make-or-break decisive test" has failed (or, at best, has produced very muddled outcomes), did the Government and media follow through and declare the war effort broken and the strategy a failure? No; they just pretend it never happened and declare the next, latest, glorious Battle the real "make-or-break decisive test" -- until that one fails and the next one is portrayed that way, in an endless tidal wave of war propaganda intended to justify our staying for as long as we want, no matter how pointless and counter-productive it is.
* * * * *
Speaking of war propaganda, today is a very proud day for the U.S.: the military commission ordered by Eric Holder begins for Omar Khadr, a Canadian-born, Afghanistan-residing detainee encaged at Guantanamo for seven years -- since he was 15 years old -- on "war crimes" and "terrorism" charges that he was involved in a firefight with American military forces who, revealingly enough, were using a former Soviet military base as their outpost. Khadr was wounded in the battle, imprisoned at Bagram, then at Guantanamo, claims he was severely tortured into falsely confessing, and made worldwide news when a video of him weeping, begging for medical help, and crying for his mother during an interrogation was released. Apparently, if the U.S. Army invades a foreign country, anyone who fights against that invading force -- including a 15-year-old boy -- is a "war criminal" and a "Terrorist," even the Worst of The Worst, which is, of course, all that we're currently holding at Guantanamo. Now that's some robust propaganda.
53 Comments so far
Show AllI have complete confidence in the military to succeed in this last effort to win the War on Terror. It's been a long painful struggle but with this last defining battle the wars will be over and peace will once again return to our lives. I'm planning a trip to the New York for the ticker tape parade welcoming home our victorious troops.
I hope that is a very big tongue in your cheek.
Otherwise I'm afraid that the paper used for the 'victory parade' will be of the quality normally associated with defecation.
But I could be wrong !
Shredded dollar bills will be used since t-paper will be too valuable.
A good laugh!
In the issue of The Independent referred to here, Marjah is described as a 'town', whereas two months later the New York Times article Mr Greenwald cites has reduced Marjah to a 'hamlet'. The NYT writers are on safer ground now in calling Kandahar the Taliban's 'spiritual home' rather than trying to define its physical dimensions. After all, who knows how small Kandahar might become in the future?
Take a little trip over to Google Earth. Kandahar is a sprawling populated area. Marjah does not exist by name, the NYT finally referred to it as 80 sq miles of villages and farming areas. Kandahar will remain large, the question is how much will be rubble, and how many maimed and dead. It is madness to try and solve this militarily.
'Apparently, if the U.S. Army invades a foreign country, anyone who fights against that invading force -- including a 15-year-old boy -- is a "war criminal" and a "Terrorist" ...'
Of course. Just like the U.S. exports its own perverted system of corporate-owned governance as "freedom and democracy" and any foreign attempts to represent the actual wants and wishes of its own citizens is "radical populism" to be exterminated at all costs.
It's small wonder that American political discussion has become totally irrational when the terminology itself has been warped out of all recognition.
Good post! Man, this would all be a great joke, if only it wasnt so serious.
Oh, no!
I much prefer "Q"'s Looking Forward to YOUR Looking Forward, Jill!
Q knows when to STOP Looking Forward-- or, put another way, Q knows that Looking TOO far Forward is just as wrongheaded and unacceptable as Looking Backward!
To be fair, it CAN get confusing. For instance, it IS OK to Look Backward when one is looking at the Worst of the Worst of our Terrorist Detainees, like this Omar Khadr guy Glenn has the bad taste to bring up.
In THESE cases, the US NEEDS to Look Backward just long enough to guarantee that Khadr can Look Forward to a lifetime of captivity, and terrified and ignorant Amerikan yahoos can Look Forward to peace of such minds as they possess.
But even for this laudable purpose, Looking Backwards should only be done by professional Trained Inquisitors. Don't try it at home!
Can't we just stick to "Hooray for our side!", like in the good old days?
.
And now we need FAIR, or somebody like them, to go back into the Vietnam archives and count the Friedman units.
The U.S. invades. Our boys successfully make it into wherever it is they're invading, with a couple of casualties. The locals understand first that our side is utterly corrupt, and second that the other side is all around them, and so they put up with us for the moment. We hire the locals. The locals wisely pay off the enemy.
The Pentagon's PR calls this a defining moment of the war. Well, it is, sort of.
Ah yes, I remember it well. Same portentous declarations, over and over, as though we had no memory of what was said the month before. Sadly it worked to string people along for quite a few years until it was clear even to the most blockheaded pundit that the Vietnamese had kicked our asses. It was, after all, their country and we had no business being there.
Joe
WTF! How can you win the hearts and minds of a population when you are repeatedly killing it's civilians. Oh I know, oops we are so sorry, wont happen again. But it does. As for the most powerful military in the world, our inteligence is lacking. The glamour for objective of this war disappeared a long time ago. It worries me that this falsely contrived war continues. May somebody of authority pull thier head out of thier ass.
Afghanistan was 'lost' when George W. Bush began this scam.
All our grade school children know is that we are at war with Eurasia,
we have always been at war with Eurasia and we will always be at war with Eurasia.
I would rather walk or ride a horse because their oil isn't worth this price.
Ahh, Glen is one of the few with a memory for the near past.
Yes that's the way the game is played! The U.S. is a salesman looking to win hearts and minds, and he has his foot in the door and won't leave.
Vie halb more konvinceing vays to vin your heart if you know vhat I mean.
Yea, the economy is full of sunshine too if you believe corporate owned media.
I wonder...how would Obama feel if it was Malia in lock-up with "enhanced interrogations", no habeus, no outside contact, little or no Red Cross, no arraignment, no trial, no nuthin...
She's about 13 right? Only a couple of years younger than this kid was when we hauled him away and wasted 7 years of his life.
The worst war criminals and terrorists inhabit the white house and the halls of congress ! The msm are cheerleaders for fascist amerikan imperialism; the good news is that the empire WILL collapse SOON; done in by its own bloody karma !
tioche, Mexico
'Jill': Absolutely. - A "trial" by "Military Commission" is a travesty of justice by the strongest group of people in the world. But it's growing increasingly transparent. That's where hope is found.
If you look closely, Jill, he is/was treated almost the same as the children who misbehave in US schools who are handcuffed(or tasered or stunned), arrested, hauled off to jail and charged for 'acting like children'....er, malicious conduct.
the same But I could be wrong !
Hi Jill...you echoed some observation I made in other threads some time ago:
in that - as an immigrant myself -i couldn't help but notice that there is a certain "national" ethos in the USA that i can't describe any other way but that of a certain hidden PLEASURE or at least a certain feeling of "satisfaction" of seeing someone PUNISHED.
i've noticed this more and more over the years and oftne tried to deny it - but it seems to be embedded and expressed in the laws of the USA...
a certain penchant for LOVING the sight of someone being punished just for its own sake...
ironically - the BIGGEST oppressors such as war criminal leaders, predatory schemers, the designers of national policies that lead to mass destruction, cruelty, wars, etc.. seldom get punished also because of the same body of laws.
you can even see this in the national obsession with seeing people being humiliated as a sport...or a national "language" of english that is full of "putdowns" , insults, cuss words..
while at the same time -- if THESe were pointed out to an american as part of many things americans need to confront as TRUTH - the crassness of their languge use, the ignorance about other cultures, etc....
americans do NOT LIKE to be told such things - and consider THEM "insulting" .
I actually experienced this just a few days ago -- when I told someone directly "you are ignorant of chinese cuisine..that is why you wrinkle your nose at the thought of their having these eels, and strange other kinds of food"....
and got the complaint:
"do you have to SAY it like THAT? 'ignorant'?"
as if it was going to be BETTER if I said:
"you are a little UNFAMILIAR"....and such things that are more "gentle" as way of telling an american what amounts to brutal TRUTH :
"ignorant".....
but that is just one example.
"a certain penchant for LOVING the sight of someone being punished just for its own sake..."
Excellent insight!
I think this oh-so typical USAn ethos comes directly from the one of the sicker aspects of the Puritain religion of the vile Oliver Chromwell. Purtitainism elevated self-righteous vindictiveness torward those they didn't like (especially Irish Catholics who they brutally ethnic cleansed and massacred) into a virtue. Once the English monarchy was re-established in 1660, there was a big movement for the Puritains to emigrate to north America in the hopes of re-establishing their pure new Jerusalem there. The Puritain Ulster-scots also went to America where, in what would become New Brunswick, they got to do their own little ethnic Catholic-cleansing against the Acadian French - the srvivors being driven into southern Louisiana.
"you can even see this in the national obsession with seeing people being humiliated as a sport...or a national "language" of english that is full of "putdowns"
Good insight again!
it has always occurred to me that the US-English word "loser" is probably a unique word - virtually untranslatable into any other language. It means so much more than just someone who loses a sports contest or such. When a USAn calls someone a "loser" it is laden with a sort of self-righteous contempt that is quite vile.
The USAns are indeed a sigularly contemptable race and a poison on the planet. Teddy, you can at least be proud of you Filipino Heritage - and presumably you can return there. Me, all I can think of is that I didnt ask to be born in this fucking madhouse. I should have gone to Ireland when I had at least a chance of a job and work-permit there in 2002-03. Now, i'm too old.
Most likely the Taliban freedom fighters will be gone when the troops arrive. There'll be a few skirmishes and claims that Taliban leaders have been captured, not much more. Then, after a month or so, the American troops will withdraw. leaving Afghan police and army units to hold the town/village/hamlet/whatever, whereupon, the Taliban will return and take over again. Let's see, if, as Karl Marx wrote, history repeats itself first as tragedy, next as farce, what about on the umpty-umpth time?
Yours is an entirely possible scenario. But there are several others, including the US and NATO walking right into their 1842.
There is a very cagey game going on, and the US and NATO military incompetents have no idea what it is.
The "insurgency" is still rhizomatic in large degree, but after all for millennia Afghan society and culture have been the essence of rhizomatic.
At any rate, the US and NATO are in shit up to the eyeballs however you analyze it.
The really hilarious sub-text is the Germans and their Neo-Junker politicos.
Jill
“I am so deeply offended by the actions of this govt.
Life means nothing to them, nothing. They don't
even feel ashamed of torturing a young boy.”
Women, now they just do not understand that we men have
something that they do not have, its called deadly force,
which is a natural instinct to kill to save a loved one.
As to why were bombing babies and kidnapping kids,
surely its perfectly understandable. So would one of you
gentlemen please explain it to her?
Blind Truth: "Women, now they just do not understand that we men have something that they do not have, its called deadly force, which is a natural instinct to kill to save a loved one."
Not sure to what extent you're being facetious. The instinct to protect loved ones is more maternal than paternal, and it is a survival instinct, not proactive but reactive. And it means to kill only when necessary.
What militarist men possess is bloodlust - the instinct to hunt and kill, to assimilate and hone such skills to excess, to pursue the conquest and to conquer - a proactive desire to look for and find a fight - to demonstrate strength and cunning - to be king of the hill.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Honor and glory exists in the character of the conquest, not in the conquest itself, which is where and why so many have become lost in history. When glory is sought in the act of the conquest itself it becomes falsely justified and will inevitably fail - battles will be won but victory will not be forthcoming.
"He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him."
Nations of peoples with representative governments ascribe to the notion of a military conquest only when honor can be attributed. When that is lacking and some higher purpose is contrived (propaganda) for the sake of rationalizing militarist bloodlust, it inevitably leads to downfall. Such is the way of history, and so shall be until we learn.
"Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility."
"The Taliban" is now just a name for the anti-occupation fighters of the Pashtuns (actually a synonym of "Afghan"!), the (42 %) dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan. "Taliban" is mostly self-recruited by people opposed to the US-NATO occupation.
It's great that NATO will now have the "make-or-break offensive" so we can finally beat these bastids who think they can do as they please just because they were born in the country. - Bloody terrorists, go home - eh, or wherever...
Jill:
“I want the people who tortured him… prosecuted.”
But surely, all encompassing is torture in the grand scheme of things as Empire USA presses upward toward greater heights of glory, wealth and power.
Even before our great nation was born, extensive torture of the American Indian was essential to genocide the last living “savage” from the swamps of Florida.
Cuba, from the day we took it away from Spain until it was liberated by President Castro, is where we perfected most of our torture chambers and goon squads.
The best there ever was at maximizing pain are the U.S. Marines, as described in the epic, WAR IS A RACKET, by Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired. Surely there is not a country south of the border where we did not do it, and also teach the fine art of how to do it. Just ask our newest victims fresh out of the torture chambers of Honduras, Columbia and Haiti.
For over a decade in the Philippians our torture was excruciating, and a major foreign policy for all of Asia for over a century.
And never has our torture been hidden from the American public, to the contrary as all the torture photos we have had to endure of late establish full well. For without our public being terrorized into fearful submission, to a very large extent by fear of they being tortured, do you think paid actor Obama would have such an easy time bombing babies every day of the week and twice on Sundays?
maybe the USA will try to sell :
"the afghans will welcome us with open arms and flowers -- after we've killed enough of them"....
Kandahar = Fallujah revisited.
Not a chance.
The US and NATO presence is extremely weak and fragile in Afghanistan.
Vicious and brutal indeed, but also weak and superficial, as all Afghans, including Karzai, understand.
If any of the Afghan rhizomes take it into their heads to target Germans specifically, there will be a veritable feast of dead Germans.
Imagine just for the sake of argument that the US had not conceded (sub rosa) recognition to Hirohito before the surrender and instead had tried to invade and occupy Japan against a non-submissive population.
Afghanistan is comparable--a hundred times more formidable than Vietnam.
Good article. Reminds me of all the so called #1 or #2 Al Qaeda leaders our military has killed and raved about.
Yeah...all the 1's and 2's, paced with the "Friedman Unit"? I just have to believe there's a breaking point for the absurdity of these arguments.
I love the smell of bullshit in the morning. Smells like victory.
perfect
Long ago I figured out this whole war was useless,when I first heard the phrase"Shock and awe." The term "military theatre" should be dumped, because usually a play has 3 acts: a beginning, a middle and an end. Maybe the term "theatre" should lose out to a "happening," as there is no implied end in sight.
The question of WHOSE shock or awe remains to be seen. I suppose that the reality really belongs to America. Somehow going miles away to fight a" war" seems ridiculous anyway.
Wow, look at our own history...I think the English lost because the land was just too far away. Vietnam was too far away, and Korea was too. I'm not sure about the Grenada thing,
but that was as silly as England and the Fauklands!
Since the French couldn't do it in Vietnam, nor the Soviets in Afghanistan, what makes us ( or is it Halliburton or Blackwater/Xe) think we could win this one anyway?
Maybe it's not about winning at all...just about losing to corporate personhood. On the other hand, if we could just create fake viagara, and add lots of estrogen, then maybe this old man military killing machine would relax and let, women, children, soldiers and citizens alone.
Once again, the message of Croseus.... the Oracle warned him...if you attack a great military might will fall....... He didn't consider the double meaning of the answer, and neither is our government.
"Shock and awe" = the public relations version of Blitzkrieg.
Merely incidentally, Saddam Hussein mainly relied on the elite Republican Guard, which was staffed by Tikritis and kinsmen at the top and which suffered little or no damage in the First Gulf War.
The Iraqi Army, though large, was loyal through the war with Iran but included Shi'ites and such in great numbers, and was like the German Army toward Hitler, not blindly loyal or reliable.
In Bush the Younger's great lightning conquest, by agreement many units had actually been previously "turned", and just sat it out waiting to surrender.
Their reward--to be sent home by Bremer.
This was in the known annals of such events perhaps the stupidest move ever made under such circumstances.
This army was filled with experienced combat veterans from two wars and knew where all the buried weapons were and how to use them.
Was the Neo-Con Bremer actually trying to cause the insurgency?
The prophecy was more exactly, "If you cross the river Halys, a great empire will fall."
The Halys divided Croesus' realm from the Persians.
Croesus crossed the river and was soon defeated and overthrown.
There is no such things as:"pivotal test; turning point; make or break offensive; the next 6 months will be decisive; if it fails many analysts believe the war will be lost;" ad nauseum! There are really no good guys and no bad guys. No winners and no losers only the flow of $$$$. I am talking about the war profiteers....they never lose.
I think you guys have said it all. If only the hire-ups (pun) in this country had the guts to search for the fact that Truth, Righteous Action, Peace, NON-VIOLENCE, and LOVE, instead of the deadly opposite that most of our greedy leaders are into, are actually laws of the Universe. Every one of these values requires sacrifice WITH DIGNITY.
Has anyone read Bartolome de las Casas's 'A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies'?
The US and NATO have bit off more than a gentle and primitive race to exterminate or convert in Afghanistan.
The tribes there range back to the ancient Indo-Europeans and beyond, and many are descended directly from the later soldiers of Alexander of Macedon.
In fact there is a temple of Alexander at Kandahar, one of Alexander's foundations (it was Persian earlier as one recalls).
They are not primitive or uncivilized--just the reverse, and they have been expelling invaders as a way of life for millennia.
The original US invasion went so quickly only because it was a small number of Specialist Troops aiding local Afghans themselves to expel the original Taliban, zealots who had gained control by Byzantine tactics of divide and conquer and who were considered outsiders by many, partly for their rigid Islam.
If anything it was the US that helped foment Fundamentalism in the war against the Soviets.
The Soviets invaded and established themselves quickly also because they had a local ally, who was indeed Socialist. It was exactly against Socialism that the US CIA fanned the flames of Fundamentalism against the Russians and their allies.
It was also the US that was partly responsible for Bin Ladin in Afghanistan. His group were tolerated because they fought the Soviets but they were always considered the "Arabs" and thus outsiders.
The new Taliban is actually much closer to a national liberation movement than the old Taliban was.
One judgment by a local has it that the Russians were much tougher than these US and NATO invaders.
The US' and NATO's days are numbered--the logistics alone are prohibitive even if the US had the kind of troops, and the numbers, to fight such a war, which it does not.
There was never anything to win. All have lost.
Not true, the Afghan tribes will again win--as they did with the Soviets--simply by fighting the most technologically advanced military in the world and not losing.
The US and NATO lose. Indeed, even if they win--whatever they might mean by that--they lose.
Same shit, different day. Nothing changes until the American people get off their dead asses and bitch slap their elected officials into submission. And that starts with a wholesale turnout of the corporate partisans holding office now.
A string of expletives I can't write here for those . . .
Let's see the justifications for the US attack and then the occupation of Afghanistan have been sequentially:
(1) to eliminate "Bin Laden" who supposedly had sanctuary there.
(2) to overthrow the Taliban
(3) to "nation-build" and install a western style "democracy".
(4) to fight the international drug war.
NUKE AFGHANISTAN TO ASSURE AFGHANI WOMEN"S RIGHTS!