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Mission of Ignorance
Right up there with "our mission," in the pantheon of sacred foreign policy mumbo-jumbo, is "training Afghan security forces," that endless, multibillion-dollar prerequisite for our departure from the country.
We've been training a local army and police force for eight years now to take on the good and noble task of defending U.S. interests. Yet: "What is there to show for all this remarkably expensive training?" writes Ann Jones at TomDispatch. "Although in Washington they may talk about the 90,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army, no one has reported actually seeing such an army anywhere in Afghanistan. . . .
"My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist."
The implications of this possibility - that we're kidding ourselves, lying to ourselves, hemorrhaging our national treasury on pie-in-the-sky strategic objectives - are so troubling that we'll never face them as a nation until every last avenue of denial has been exhausted. I fear we've still got a long way to go in this regard.
Early
in the game, the Bush White House actually boasted that it was no
longer fettered by reality. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we
create our own reality," an unnamed White House spokesman famously
crowed. The "Afghan army" is one of the results of this
hubris-that-passeth-all-
Jones writes of visiting training fields near Kabul, where Illinois National Guardsmen - "big, strong, camouflaged, combat-booted, supersized American men" - put Afghan trainees through the paces. "Keep in mind," she writes, "Afghan recruits come from a world of desperate poverty. They are almost uniformly malnourished and underweight. Many are no bigger than I am (5-feet-4 and thin) - and some probably not much stronger. Like me, many sag under the weight of a standard-issue flak jacket."
Keep in mind also, she notes, that the Afghans have a warrior tradition. They defeated the Soviets 20 years ago; free of the massive weight of the equipment and ammo U.S. soldiers carry, they can traverse the mountainous terrain of their own land with ease and efficiency. The Taliban, of course, fight within this tradition now, with great success, but no matter: "The U.S. military is determined to train (the Afghan recruits) for another style of war."
What happens, she says, is that the poor Afghans, who can get no other work, sign up for military training, become certified as soldiers, desert, then sign up for the training again under different names. Taliban members also take the training, then use the skills they learned against U.S. and NATO forces.
And, oh yeah: "When I visited bases and training grounds in July," Jones writes, "I heard some American trainers describe their Afghan trainees in the same racist terms once applied to African slaves in the U.S.: lazy, irresponsible, stupid, childish, and so on."
Well, hmm. Some kind of American vision has come to fruition here, and it is all too familiar. The Bush-era neocons who were creating their own reality were merely remaking portions of the Middle East and Central Asia along the established, culturally obtuse lines of the colonialism of yesteryear, pumped up with American pop-culture machismo in the style of Rambo and G.I. Joe.
Our "mission" in Afghanistan is a potent blend of arrogance, ignorance and power, and the pretend army we keep creating, over and over, out of the malnourished and dispossessed locals, is an example of the dysfunctional society such a mission inevitably births. It's what a different generation of war criminals birthed in Vietnam.
And we are not yet at the stage of reflecting and regrouping. The Obama administration, despite its mandate to dismantle the Bush era and reel in the neocon arrogance the previous administration loosed on the world, is pursuing the flawed vision it inherited. We continue to stomp across Central Asia with utter ignorance of the culture and people we purport to be liberating, bringing with us the worst of who we are. We have absolute faith in our latter-day manifest destiny and the three-word religion that sustains it: Might make right.
Such a religion is also called the myth of redemptive violence. It is history's oldest, simplest, most pervasive myth, and its influence is stronger than ever among the American ruling class, having embedded itself in the war economy to which this class is beholden. Humanitarian aid? Food? Health care? No way. These are not part of the myth.
They may be common sense to an adult, but as theologian Walter Wink writes: "There is no rite of passage from adolescent to adult status in the national cult of violence."
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20 Comments so far
Show Allit really should be titled :
"MISSION OF IGNORANCE and HYPOCRISY".
which basically defines American Foreign Policies of Empire Pretending as the 'savior of the world'.
below is an article that demonstrates this perfectly:
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A Hypothetical Invasion of Bolivia
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Suppose the world had awakened this morning to the news that the Russian army had attacked and invaded Bolivia. Thousands of Russian paratroopers have landed in the country, securing airports, permitting hundreds of Russian transport planes to bring in tens of thousands of Russian soldiers.
Despite being badly outmanned and outgunned, the Bolivians, both military and civilian, are resisting the invasion fiercely. Both the Russians and the Bolivians are suffering hundreds of casualties.
When asked why Russia has decided to invade Bolivia, Russian officials respond, “In order to spread democracy, stability, peace, and freedom in Latin America.”
What would be the reaction of the American people? My hunch is that at least 99 percent of the American people and 100 percent of U.S. officials would be angry and outraged. Immediately, U.S. officials would be denouncing the raw, naked aggression and demanding that Russia exit Bolivia immediately. Many federal officials would even be demanding U.S. intervention on behalf of the Bolivians.
My hunch also is that there would be very little sympathy for the Russian soldiers who were losing the lives in the battles. The attitude among Americans would be that they shouldn’t have invaded Bolivian in the first place. Virtually all the sympathy, I think, would be with the Bolivian people, especially those who were losing their lives in the conflict.
Now, change the identity of the invader. This time the world wakes up to the news that the United States has invaded Bolivia. Fierce battles are taking place and both sides are taking heavy casualties.
When asked why the U.S. has invaded Bolivia, U.S. officials respond, “In order to spread democracy, stability, peace, and freedom in Latin America.”
My hunch is that the reaction of many Americans would be entirely different. Bumper stickers would immediately appear on cars across the land exhorting Americans to “support the troops.” The following Sunday and every Sunday after that, ministers in both Catholic and Protestant churches would be asking their parishioners to bow their heads in silence and pray for the troops who are in harm’s way, working for peace and defending our freedoms in a faraway land. American soldiers being killed would be mourned and medaled as having died in the service of their country. The Bolivian dead would be called “the bad guys.”
How can we be certain that the American reaction to a Russian invasion of Bolivia would be dramatically different from a U.S. invasion of the country?
Two reasons: Afghanistan, which both the Soviet Union and the U.S. invaded, and Iraq, which the U.S. invaded.
Bolivia? The US might very well approve of a Russian invasion of Bolivia, so long as it got a fair share of the spoils. Try a nation full of US military bases instead.
The Afghans refuse to fight and die to accomplish the goals of large US corporations? Unbelievable! Who could have predicted that?
It's like day and night in Vietnam all over again--"blood is thicker than water" so in the day they are with us in the night they are with their own. Try to defeat their army by training and equipping their people and you are really giving them an advantage to kick your ass. Why do I even bother to mention it--I guess it's because you chicken-hawks are so freaking stupid, someone has to clew you in.
My best advice though is get the hell out of there 'cause you have no right to be there in the first place. Do you understand?
Vietnamization 2.0
then: "Inside every gook is an American struggling to be free"
now; "Inside every raghead is an American struggling to be free'
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Stop the planet, I want to get off.
The TomDispatch article by Ann Jones is well worth reading in full. Jones worked for years inside Afghanistan (primarily on womens' rights and related humanitarian issues), and somehow managed to gain access from the US military to witness the training efforts actually underway attempting to create a functioning Afghan army and police force.
The gist of her analysis is that economics is the driving force. Unemployed Afghan men (many of whom are Taliban sympathyzers) enlist and go through basic training simply because it provides a temporary paycheck, clothing, food, and a rifle. Some repeat the cycle, re-enlisting under a different name. The military skills being taught by active duty American advisor/instructors and US contractors mimic the skills of traditional, high technology western-style armies, even though it is a very unconventional guerilla war within a tribal culture that is actually taking place.
The Pentagon think tankers are kidding themselves if they believe a "stabilizing" indigenous military and police presence is going to arise from the dynamics of this environment. In fact, one of the offshoots is a virtual guarantee that any Afghan army or Afghan police entity which emerges will be riddled with insurgents, just as the south Vietnamese army, police, and intelligence services were chocked full of Viet Cong loyalists and black market profiteers throughout the Vietnam war.
Nationalism remains the trump card. That means that as the foreign outsiders in this bloody chess game, it's only a matter of time - and time is inevitably on our adversaries' side. The more money and resources Washington shovels in, the more will get diverted. The agony can be prolonged while the counterinsurgency strategy mix is tinkered with over and over, but the end result will never change.
Bill from Saginaw
The son of a friend of mine was over there for a while engaged in training the Afghan "soldiers." He said it at first surprised him how often the Afghan soldiers would lose their weapons or other equipment and would ask for it to be replaced. They could not perform their duties without their weapons and so typically the US would fulfill the requests. However, after he realized that the great majority of the Afghans with such requests had not really lost their weapons or equipment but instead had sold them, often to the Taliban or other "enemy" groups, he really began doubting that the mission would be successful.
Reality sucks!
But what many of us would like to know: Is the US still replacing those weapons that are being sold?
Why not? The defense contractors love filling those orders.
Gail & kivals -
In fact, I've read elsewhere (I think in the TomDispatch article by Ms. Jones) that the US/NATO military mission in Afghanistan is trying to substitute the US Army infantry's M-16 rifle in place of the favored weapon of choice in the region (the famous Kalishikov) for standard use by the new Afghan army.
Phasing in this Vietnam-era weapon - after the CIA and the Pakistani ISI spent years clandestinely pipelining Kalisnikovs to the mujidaheen "freedom fighters" in their war against the Soviets - is a creative use of Pentagon surplus of course. The transition also reeks with symbolic irony.
Bill from Saginaw
That is a bit of disturbing irony.
From what I understand, the US has been giving the Afghans refurbished M-16's and M-249 light machine guns, as well as various other types of military equipment.
the Irony of that too is:
while the USA and western countries have had this "nation building" hubris and arrogance to supposedly "civilize" other regions - as a pretext and convenience to make other regions GIVE UP THEIR independence and national destinies for the sake of western colonialism and "correct management" of their geographic resources -
while the usa basically practices a form of "assimilating" BUT "WHITE MAN's BURDEN" "world order" behavior expressed in these invasions, meddling, and occupations - and it reflects a fundamental arrogance and sense of "superiority" as its justification.....
IN ITS TURN - its attempts to "re-order" those regions - is met by the locals - such as the afghanis with an IMPLICIT DISDAIN.
this local way of afghanis "asking for replacements" of munitions and other material -- is really a thinly veiled exrpessions towards the americans and foreigners that amounts to :
"UP YOURS" ...."we'll decide what to do with this toys". they are basically spitting on every american's face by showing them how much disdain afghanis have for these foreign invaders and occupiers .
i recall a simple remark by an ordinary afghan as he was interviewed...and presumably it was a reflection of the common thinking about americans being in their country:
"They think we are fools...but we know they are not here to help us...but because they want to take advantage of our country".
The Brits slapped together Afghanistan for their administrative convenience, not for the Afghans' benefit. They ignored the centrifugal forces inherent in its fragmented indigenious population and made inevitable its intractability as a political prize for western nations on the make. Even if a viable Afghan police and/or military is trained and equipped now by the US, whatever the numbers, it will happily fail to further our intentions there.
There is very little cohesion among potential Afghan troops in Afghanistan around a 'national' entity but far more personal loyalty to ethic groups. Creating a workable 'national' Afghan security apparatus to defend the Karzai and subsequent, and probably fraudulent, governments, will fail for this reason. This is what baffles our leadership and renders our invasion a failure of imagination - not to mention morality. This, too, is what comes of empire building.
Tirebiter -
Good observations.
The tribal and ethnic divisions and long history of warlordism in Afghanistan is one aspect of our military foray into that region of the world today that is strikingly different from America's previous blood drenched misadventure into southeast Asia in the 60's and early 70's.
By comparison to Afghanistan, Vietnam was culturally homogenous. There was a deep sense of shared national identity that differentiated the Vietnamese from their Chinese, Cambodian, and Laotian neighbors. Ho Chi Minh (in addition to being a Marxist) was a fervent Vietnamese nationalist, who symbolized unification of a country that had been artificially divided (much like Korea) by western colonial powers in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
As I see it, this difference exacerbates the whole problem of the United States trying to impose stability from the outside by means of military force. Uncle Sam has all the problems we confronted forty years ago in Vietnam, plus a whole additional layer of cross cutting cultural complexity that makes the endeavor even more daunting. And of course what nobody in Washington really wants to acknowledge candidly is that the Pakistani ISI is to the Taliban what North Vietnam once was to the Viet Cong.
Bill from Saginaw
TRUTH , historical and philosophical as well as factual, can't be said better than the way you put it!!
I wish i can put things the way you and so many others do!
From the article: ' They may be common sense to an adult, but as theologian Walter Wink writes: "There is no rite of passage from adolescent to adult status in the national cult of violence." '
Actually, this probably common sense to a higher fraction of children than "adults". There is a rite of passage from adolescent or adult to pre-adolescent called Basic Training. This is where soldiers learn to be hard-core gang bangers, with no morals beyond allegiance to their buddies, and obedience to authority, with total disregard to principles of law or the well-being of their nation.
once again the mission is not properly described
its about the oil, gas and pipelines stupid
as it was for the brits and the french 100 years ago - same psyop different player
i don't think that standard oil and the rockefellers give a sweet fuck about the 5'4" urchins they are "training"
they got the oil - the russians and chinese don't
mission accomplished
its that simple, the rest is yada yada yada
It must be remembered that Afghanistan has successfully repulsed every single attempt by every empire to occupy it.
Without exception.
The US is now locked in the same death spiral that they managed to force the the former USSR into. The USSR spent so much money on it's own Afghan occupation, in the form of men, munitions and materiel that it eventually triggered the general collapse of the Soviet economy.
The US commanding general for this farce has said he will need 500 000 soldiers to achieve a 'successful resolution' of the situation, within a 10 - 15 year time frame.
Do you honestly think that this is even remotely feasible, given todays economy? Would it be feasible if the economy continues on it's downward spiral, as it shows every sign of doing?
Walk in peace.
For real HOME(Hands Off the Middle East)land security, OUT NOW!
There already IS an Afghan army, and they are doing what armies are supposed to do - defend.