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TechnoratiPresident Obama Has Things Backward in Afghanistan
He is putting the escalation cart way out in front of the strategy horse.
Obama has already announced plans to escalate the war by sending 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. But in his address to Congress, he acknowledged he was still working to "forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."
It would have been much more sensible to devise the strategy before deploying the troops.
As Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said, "If we just put troops, plunk them down, another 20-30,000 in Afghanistan ... we're on the wrong track."
Afghanistan is known as the "graveyard of empires." The British, Russians and Soviets learned the hard way during the 19th and 20th centuries - they were each driven out long before they could claim "mission accomplished." Why do we think the American attempt will be any different?
Developments in Afghanistan certainly don't make a case for escalation. Eight years after U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from Kabul, the group is on the rise again, not least because of local outrage over the killing of more Afghans by U.S. forces. The United States and its allies directly killed 828 people - ordinary people, children, women and old men, according to a new U.N. survey. Last July, just one U.S. air strike killed at least 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were traveling to a wedding in eastern Nuristan province.
Afghan anger toward the foreign troops is rising. A recent BBC/ABC News survey found that notwithstanding 90 percent opposition to the Taliban, less than half of Afghans hold a favorable view of the United States.
There are 56,000 NATO troops (including 18,000 Americans), and 19,000 other U.S. troops in Afghanistan. They were supposed to stabilize Afghanistan. But their presence has led to more Afghans being killed, not fewer. It's unlikely that another 17,000 pairs of boots escalating the war, still without a strategy, will somehow succeed.
Instead of more troops, what's needed is a negotiated, diplomatic settlement bringing together all parties in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region - yes, including the Taliban.
As Ibrahim Khan, a cargo driver, told the Washington Post on Feb. 22, "Bringing in another foreign army is not going to help. They always come here for their own interests, and they always lose. Better to let everyone sit down with the elders and find a way for peace."
Khan knows his country's history. The Obama administration should listen.
26 Comments so far
Show AllLet's eviscerate Obama on Afghanistan on March Sixth,
On the front page of the NYT's on March Seventh I see Obama is discussing reaching out to the Taliban.
An incredibly Progressive and right on thing to do.
He will do much good, and fail to do much good. This is a good development.
Like reversing Bush's stem-cell research ban on the SAME DAY!
BO will chip away at the beast with a thousand cuts. Here are two. There have been others. More coming.
Joe.
When Mr. Obama began to spout rambling idiocy about his future war in Afghanistan I wrote on this site that it is the height of criminal military folly to begin a campaign when your supply lines are uncertain if not endangered.
The textbook example of the impending disaster in Afghanistan is what happened to the German Wehrmacht at Stalingrad.
Here is what General Duncan McNabb had to say yesterday: “If you ask me what I worry about at night it is the fact that our supply chain is always under attack”. Notice carefully, the General is more worried about the supply chain than about the Taliban or El Qaeda.
The newest plan is to ship supplies through Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Duncan, do you not worry about that supply chain? It runs through states where the robbery of caravans has occurred for thousands of years. Good luck, Duncan. Mountains of bribes (baksheesh) will have to be paid to the vile rulers of these countries.
The panic of Duncan et al. really escalated when Kyrgyzstan announced the closure of Manas Air Base for the U.S. Air Force.
Negotiated settlement??
That won't secure the oil pipeline to the Caspian Sea.
There are multiple reasons Mr. Obama is escalating the Afghanistan involvement.
As I see it, and there is probably more, Mr. Obama needs to continue the economic benefits of war production in this economic down turn.
He needs a potential global war to distract the American people.
He needs to keep the generals and their political alias busy.
As Ibrahim Khan, a cargo driver, told the Washington Post on Feb. 22, "Bringing in another foreign army is not going to help. They always come here for their own interests, and they always lose. Better to let everyone sit down with the elders and find a way for peace."
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imagine that == a cargo driver does not need the education of Ivy League and "advanced civilizations" -- to utter the SAME wisdom and seeing right through things as the ancient Greek Philosopher Socrates:
"ALL Foreign wars are waged for Power and Money".
and the cargo driver knows THAT is why the USA is THERE...for power, money, and its own "OILPIPELINISTAN".
We are there for the OILPIPELINISTAN, but it is not our pipeline. It is an Israeli pipeline. Israel ober alles!!!
there you go..
it is like the saying THE TAIL THAT WAGGED THE DOG.
ISRAEL is the TAIL wagging the DOG USA.
when israel tells the USA "jump" the usa says: "HOW HIGH?"
israel tells the USA sniff my crotch : the USA says " DO YOU WANT ME TO SNIFF AND LICK YOUR ASS TOO?"
I have a copy of Susan Griffin's A Chorus of Stones__The Private Life of War (the chorus of stones referring to the stones in the cemetary). Also We'Moon '09 Datebook. This year's theme is "At The Crossroads."
No Chevron pipeline, no peace.
That's the bottom line.
The USA is there to have its own "PIPELINISTAN" -- but it's not going to win..the taliban and afghanis , pashtuns and tribes will just KICK the USA out in due time...
Would Obama have a reason to send these troops to Afghanistan and Pakistan if he was successful in taking out Bin Laden by Predator raids or by police action with the help of government negotiations?
Sioux Rose - Nice thoughts and commentary.
It seems to me that if we're going to include the Taliban in discussions aimed at a regional settlement approach, a good proposal to put in the middle of the table would be to go back to the weeks immediately preceding the start of US military intervention in Afghanistan in the late fall of 2001.
At that time, Mullah Omar and the Taliban controlled Kabul and about 80% of the countryside, and they were gearing up for a big spring offensive against what was left of the Northern Alliance. Using Pakistan as a diplomatic intermediary, the Bush White House issued an ultimatum to the Taliban (a government the US did not formally recognize). Turn over Osama, Zwahiri, and the other al Qaeda leaders given sanctuary in Afghanistan, and shut down the training camp/madrassa network that was recruiting and organizing international jihadis. Defy this ultimatum, and the United States will start bombing.
To the great surprise of all the knowledgeable experts, Mullah Omar actually responded favorably. The Taliban acknowledged (1) that Osama and al Qaeda were indeed on Afghan territory, (2) that the Taliban would withdraw the traditional Muslim hospitality extended to the foreign jihadis, in order that (3) Bin Laden, Zwahiri and the others implicated in 9/11 would be sent away to a "neutral Muslim state" for potential trial under Islamic law or international law.
This olive branch to avoid US invasion was perfunctorily rejected by the Bush administration, and the B-52's started warming up on Diego Garcia. The stated reason for rejecting Mullah Omar's offer was that the United States was not going to become enmeshed in "lengthy negotiations" with a radical Islamist theocratic regime that harbored terrorists. In fact, the Bushies put out a "Wanted Dead or Alive" bounty on Mullah Omar's head similar to the bounty already offered for Osama. So much for exhausting all diplomatic options before resorting to war.
Knowing now what a huge opportunity was missed, why not go back to this square #1?
Specifically, Obama should pledge that all US and NATO combat forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan within 90 days of Osama bin Laden, Zwahiri, and the other remaining al Qaeda leadership being ousted from wherever theiy're currently holed up and turned over into the custody of some other Muslim state willing to take them in until a trial over the WTC attack could be held.
For every government and faction in the region that wants the foreign infidel occupation forces to leave, this approach creates a concrete way to achieve that end, and marginalize the radical international terrorist element within the Muslim world in the process.
Time for all the foreigners to get out of the pool.
Afghanistan for Afghans only, so the reconstruction and reconciliation can begin.
Bill from Saginaw
Saint Obama, on his charging steed, his flashing lance aloft, his body armor glittering in the sun, shall lead his Christian soldiers across the hostile plains of Afghanistan...to victory. General Betrayus will say: "Well done, my good & faithful servant. Now, let us on to Washington and the talk shows, where I shall oppose you in the next election."
70% of the Afghani people believe the Afghani police and military need the support of foreign troops to be effective.
http://asiafoundation.org/publications/pdf/418
Is it not the case that "popular demand" is always asserted by expansionist and imperialist governments to justify military intervention in a foreign nation?
Vietnam, Iraq-- US officials even claimed that the freaking Granadans and Panamanians were warmly receptive to its glorified war games. There are always oppressed and victimized peoples to liberate and rescue if the occasion presents itself-- and there's something in it for us. And even if the cited poll is accurate, consider that the Filipinos and Hawaiians also first welcomed the US and its military missions.
Hindsight invariably discloses that an altruistic response to a suffering foreign population was not the motivating force for the US government, but at worst a sham or pretext, and at best a convenience.
· Yr Obd't Servant
You make a good point; but Iraq? Who ever tried to claim that Iraqis wanted us there?
Exhibit A:
Cheney: Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. And the president’s made it very clear that our purpose there is, if we are forced to do this, will in fact be to stand up a government that’s representative of the Iraqi people, hopefully democratic due respect for human rights, and it, obviously, involves a major commitment by the United States, but we think it’s a commitment worth making. And we don’t have the option anymore of simply laying back and hoping that events in Iraq will not constitute a threat to the U.S. Clearly, 12 years after the Gulf War, we’re back in a situation where he does constitute a threat.
The "sweets and flowers" expression attributed to Cheney comes from Woodward's book "Plan of Attack". He described a meeting Bush and Cheney had with Iraqi dissidents, including the aforementioned Professor Kanan Makiya, during which one dissident said, "People will greet troops with flowers and sweets." Cheney, in the above quote, asserts that we will be greeted as liberators, that he does not expect a long struggle, and then cites Makiya-- he's clearly referring directly to the conversation where the flowers expression was used!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Is that the Rand Corporation's survey? If it is, welcome to the real world !
Some of the members of Rand Corporation are : Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld , and "Scooter" Libby et al.......It is a "Think Tank" whose job is to make Department of Defense Policy. When the suicide rate for Iraq Vets returning home went up, their report was, "The rate is the same as the national rate and they are committing suicide because of romantic breakups."
If Zbigniew Brzezinski had not come up with the idea to destabilize The Afghan Government in 1979, maybe the Soviet Plan would have worked. Now that I think about it, why not try the Soviet Plan: The Soviets were investing in an economic and educational development plan. The Soviets did not send military until six months after the U.S. destabilization plan began.
Imagine ZB telling his protege,President Obama, " You know President Obama, I was the one responsible for this damn Islamic Militant Movement and maybe its time to tell the American People the truth and just get the heck out of there."
Policy should be made by elected officials not "Think Tanks".
No. It's not the Rand co. survey.
Has Obama's mask come off yet, revealing Dick Cheney's face?
The mask never fooled me, not even for a second, but I can't wait to see the reaction of Dem Party Apologists and Lesser Evilists when it becomes impossible even for these cowards to embrace the truth.
The sneer is too well hidden at the moment.
Sioux Rose
Maybe I'm suffering from "Disaster capitalism" fever, but it seems that those with the power to press levers are choosing to bankrupt this nation, bring it to its knees so that there can be a firesale of all PRICELESS assets. This "there's gotta be a war somewhere to boost/sustain our economy" thinking, under thrall to Mars rules, has GOT to stop, or our nation will BE stopped in its tracks. Not only is it immoral, diabolical, cruel and unusual punishment to the next nation targeted for unapologetic collateral damage; it is economically non-feasible. Will it take other nations stopping the line of credit? I am unsure of the logistics that will facilitate a radical change in policy and perspective, but inevitably such a response must soon emerge.
With the money thrown at banks and lost on senseless wars to profit a few at the critical expense of so many, one has to wonder if it's all aiming at a new currency, one that would bring the US dollar on more of a par with the Mexican peso. Our currency is only worth the faith citizens place in it. To my mind, as I go about my travels observing people, the level of nonchalance in many circles, the sense that it's ALL holding together when actually it is not (how many banks are insolvent if the truth was known?) seems much like living in an alternative universe, a separate reality. At least there has not yet been a run on the banks, the power of semblance is apparently still strong enough to hold the populace virtually hypnotized. The "leaders" shuffle paper back and forth to give the appearance that all is well, under control, being handled. As if.
Hopefully President Obama is a faster and more thorough learner than previous administrations and hopefully he will get in touch with RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan to see what the situation is for the women and children of Afghanistan and learn from them how to help. The RAWA web page is on line and can be googled for information. We, here, we the people, can find ways to help through teach-ins etc., should we care to google RAWA and find out how to help.
Sioux Rose
LOST: I wish it were about a motive of wanting to help, but it seems US foreign policy is a total appeasement of the beast, which is to say the mammoth military industrial complex, an entity with its tentacles in so many other aspects of the US economy, "jobs" in every state, and so forth, that the will of this beast must be done, and it's done through war. What better way to refill "inventory," devise rationale for the latest weapon system, fund a media that keeps a population seduced through fear that it gives up its blood and firstborn sons (and now daughters) to battles as senseless as those that go back to Biblical times, as if NOTHING, not one iota of clarity, has been gotten from the study of these movements, a reflection on war, warfare and the bestial state across the long blood-soaked arc of history.
IF anyone ever listened to the women, which is to say if VENUS had anywhere NEAR the clout Mars does on this planet, we would hardly see health care, museums, libraries, school lunch programs CUT so that warfare could be furthered. The priorities are anti-life AND insane AND diabolical, even if they come from "experts" high paid and dressed in modern clean cut suits.
Sioux Rose says: "The priorities are anti-life AND insane AND diabolical, even if they come from "experts" high paid and dressed in modern clean cut suits."
You got it, Sioux Rose. INSANE is the word.
Neem Karoli Baba/Maharji-ji/Baba-ji ... the guru Master/Saint of India, who was the instrument of transformation of Herbert Albert, psychologist Ph.D., kicked out of Harvard, into Ram Dass ... said it best when asked "What should I/[We] do?"
The answer: FEED PEOPLE/LOVE PEOPLE/SERVE PEOPLE/REMEMBER GOD
I think Jesus and all the Great Ones whoever lived said/say the same thing.
And of course, all over the world, masses of people, including "Big Wigs," go to houses of worship of whatever religion and denomination and nod and look properly pious, and for 5 seconds to 5 minutes agree, but forgeddaboutit as soon as they walk out the door. Sunday in the U.S., after "worship," the families head for a MacDonald's Sunday brunch of Egg/MacMuffins and Happy Meals and whatever else before shopping at Wal-Marts. Of course, right now, quite a few of those families may be heading for a shelter or food pantry.
Reading what's going on just about everywhere, where the mind-set comes from the Colonialism mentality, the MARS mentality, and the infantile kind of ignorance that refuses to look outside of the inner circle of one's own conditionings and belief systems for new answers, except in those countries, such as Venezuela with a Hugo Chavez helping poor U.S. east-coast people with free deliveries of oil or helping the Katrina victims and his own people with medical care, job training, literacy programs, etc. [and I'm sure the man isn't perfect, but what he's doing seems to be working, and it isn't really new; it's the morally right thing to do], I concluded a while back, along with millions-plus of others, that our so badly corrupted government and our financial and corporate systems in the U.S. are the major instruments that will do in the planet, for sure, in not too many years, ... unless some miracle of higher consciousness begins to operate, not only here but in the heads and hearts of other MARS-indoctrinated leaders of "Western" or Eastern nations who we claim as allies.
Jerry Mazza, a freelance writer out of NYC, who seems always to get it right, has a great article posted on www.onlinejournal.com today about karmic payback for good or for ill.
"bush's karma, obama's change?"
www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4450.shtml
This is the great winnowing time ... and we will either come out of it bruised and battered, but chastened and clear-eyed, or Kaput!
But I don't have to tell you that, S.R. You know what the scene is and how it works.
namaste, cm
Sioux Rose
CEE MIRACLES: Thank you for your response and the posted link which I just read. I certainly concur with the author, and I think he dotted most of the "i's." I, too, feel spring in the air, and the renewed promise of life affirming itself. Time away in California allowed me to return home with renewed appreciation, a sentiment quickly caught by the young man I "frolic" with in these otherwise remote parts. New book in the pipeline, too. It seems almost surreal to experience personal good fortune when so much of "Rome" is aflame. I can never divorce either my own pain from larger events, nor my own joy. As the tradition of Tikkum Olam suggests, we are ALL here to do the work of repairing the world. I think much of life is a recovery process, and that's largely because those with the most brutal ways and weapons have generally found ways to control others and direct societies/social arrangements to suit their particular primitive beliefs & bidding. There are notable exceptions like more egalitarian Indigenous cultures and others that predate patriarchal religions and their long heritage(s).
It is utterly strange to exist in a state of paradox. However, I realized in writing about the end of the Piscean Age, that to truly help midwife a new phase for mankind, the two opposing fish must come to a reconciliation that would in metaphor simulate the lovers of Eden no longer feeling shame for their natural love of one another, that Venus and Mars become the INTENDED partners, and our world transcend the state of divorce to which it's largely been bequeathed by the moneychangers inside the "holy" temples. Babies are born even during wars. LOVE is stronger than its antithesis...