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TechnoratiOccupying Afghanistan Is Making Things Worse
President Obama is coming under attack from the Right for his reluctance to grant the request of General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, for more U.S. troops. On the other side of the equation sits the majority of the American people, who are against sending more troops and in fact oppose this seemingly endless war that has now entered year nine.
Obama should go with the people and set a timetable to get our troops out of Afghanistan as soon as is practically possible, which should be less than one year. Their presence cannot contribute to bringing peace and security to that country, nor does it contribute to the security of the United States. In fact, the occupation of Afghanistan is making things worse on both counts.
With regard to the people of Afghanistan, my colleague Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy presents the most compelling piece of recent evidence that the occupation is a complete failure. Five years ago, 70 percent of eligible voters participated in the Afghan presidential election. This year it was down to 38 percent. This is mainly because the security situation has deteriorated over the last five years. It also represents a political failure: the inability or unwillingness to negotiate a political settlement that would have allowed many more people to vote.
The United States has also helped put together a government that is dominated in key positions - especially military, police, and intelligence -- by Tajiks, the ethnic group whose para-military leaders were the first to strike a deal with the invading forces. Not surprisingly, this contributed to the nationalist fuel for the insurgency among the Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group. This contribution to ethnic conflict is common mistake, or sometimes a tactic, of occupying powers that helps drive lasting and violent civil wars. The United States made similar moves in Iraq that contributed massively to horrific sectarian violence against civilians there, most of which was committed not by suicide bombers but by the occupation-supported government and its allies. More than a million Iraqis, according to the best estimates, are dead as a result of the Iraq War. Do we need to do the same in Afghanistan in order to "save" that country?
With regard to the United States' national security, there is no legitimate reason for continuing this war. Most experts are in agreement that Al Qaeda has left Afghanistan for Pakistan. President Bush wanted to send ground forces into Pakistan, but the Pakistanis said no. Fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan when they have left for Pakistan is reminiscent of the old joke about the drunk who is seen looking for his wallet under a streetlight. When asked if he lost the wallet there, he says "no, but this is the only place where there's enough light to look for it."
In any case the greatly feared potential "haven" for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan turns out to much less important than previously imagined, as a potential threat to the United States. As Paul R. Pillar, a former top counter-terrorist official at the CIA recently noted, "The preparations most important to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks took place not in training camps in Afghanistan but, rather, in apartments in Germany, hotel rooms in Spain and flight schools in the United States."
There is also a
moral dimension here that is overlooked by the pundits. It is wrong to
kill people, including civilians, and bring mayhem and destruction to
other countries simply to "save face" or fend off political attacks
from right-wing politicians. Thank God there are millions of Americans
who understand this much better than their elected, appointed, and
self-appointed leaders. If they keep up the heat, this war will end.
This column was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on October 8, 2009 and published by the Sacramento Bee and other newspapers.
32 Comments so far
Show AllWar is NEVER the answer to anything, nost just Afghanistan. However, the USan Empire is about to find out why...again!
The Taliban is building an insurgency around the priciples of a man, they helped assinnate right before 9/11, Massoud. He established 20 to 30 man teams for harrassment and ambush; larger 200 to 300 man units for large strikes against Russian (now American) outposts, taught tactics and strategy to all his subordinates, and set up a quasi-government to try and provide for the people in the Panjshir region he controlled. The Taliban will soon obtain anti-tank and surface to air missles, just as we and other countries supplied them to fight the Russians, and then the bloodbath will begin. We need to withdraw now. Before it's to late. This conflict is about occupation, by a foriegn invader and a ethnic minority in control, backed up by the occupier.
It is doomed.
October, 2001...
Afghan to American soldier on a street in Kabul near the Great Museum:
"Why are you here?"
Ugly American:
"To save you."
Afghan:
"To save me from what?"
American soldier, carrying 150 pounds of protective gear and weapons and global positioning system electronic infra-red blah blah communications:
"Yourself."
Afghan:
"Go home, and save YOUR Self if you have not already lost it. We were doing just fine before the invading armies of the West."
(Dean Egadnas, in "Concepts of Self-Identity in Chickens, Muslims, Christians, and Jews; a Graduate Thesis on Polygamy,"
University of Discontent, Idaho, 2008")
-30-
Mark, Obama doesn't care! His big mind tells him that he is playing the empire game and that we peons only need concern ourselves with keeping our homes and health insurance. A little public relations here, some propaganda there, and a smile and verbal puffery will keep us in a happy stupor. Did you cheer for the football god today? Ahhh, it's working.
Of course the occupation is a failure. It can not succeed, and never could. A child could understand this easily. So either Obama is less perceptive than a child, or he has an agenda to keep the war going even in the face of the impossibility of "success". I fear it is the latter.
And what exactly is that agenda to keep the war going?
Oil and imperialistic expansion. Duh!
I would like someone who thinks the war must go on to explain their rationale.
"Occupying Afghanistan Is Making Things Worse"
Ya think? I'm amazed at the number of words in this article to state the obvious.
To speak of "morality" at the conclusion is absurd while people are getting killed.
War and the violence of war has some very nasty consequences.
This reality was made all too painfully clear yesterday, as my daughter, and I sat through the funeral of a soldier who was killed, in Logar Province, Afghanistan, October 2, 2009. He was a member of her husband's National Guard unit.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "More that an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all war."
And, General Smedley Butler summed it up rather succinctly,"War Is A Racket."
To dismiss the "old pipeline trope" based on economics is to misunderstand how imperialism works. The oil companies who want TAPI built, the MIC that sell the munitions and the Banks (always the banks) who reap finance charges off all of it don't pay the bills. The US taxpayer does. The fact that half the money we've spent in the latest round of S. Asian wars could've made America green-energy self-sufficient misses the motivations of the groups who control our government. They #1) want the profits and, #2) DON'T want us energy self-sufficient. England's occupation of India was horribly expensive but the British East India Company didn't pay for it, the citizens did. Henry Cabot Lodge's explanation for the Vietnam war (mineral deposits, rice surpluses, cheap labor... he was ungodly frank about it) was about corporate interests, not "freedom". War is virtually always about money and all the rest of the talk... freedom, women's rights, security.. is a distraction, meant to keep you talking.
War is virtually always about money
Yes, there are huge amounts of money to be made by war. It is equally true that human beings like to fight and they like to kill. That is one of the principle reasons war has persisted as long as it has. And USA human beings REALLY like to fight and REALLY like to kill.
and it's been that way since "nations" came around and had "money".
"WARS are waged for Money and Power" - SOCRATES
I think it was either Ludwig von Mises - or maybe the War THeorist Claus von Clausewitz who said:
"THE MONEYED CLASS WILL NEVER SUPPORT WARS UNLESS A PROFIT IS TO BE MADE....WARS ARE ALWAYS CONCEIVED, PLANNED, INSTIGATED AND WAGED BY THE MONEY CLASS, INDEPENDENT OF THE WELFARE OF THE COMMON PEOPLE..."
and another, i always forget these who said them, but nevermind, but I think this one below is also by Socrates:
"WAR is Pillage, Rape, Murder and Theft of other people's resources".
And I think General Butler also said:
"There is nothing Noble about War...War is Hell and Murder in Uniform".
MS... if you really believe that, please go to "counterpunch.org" and read Marc Levy's "Talking Dirty to Kids". Nobody wants to be in modern combat.
Sioux Rose
RUDY: Right on! And not just keep "you" talking, it pays the salaries of all those pundits that treat military initiatives like football games. They readily announce each play, each "victory" to keep the public's eye on the illusion taking place. Few ever get beyond these "plays" to understand the genuine motivations behind the dark, diabolical, covert acts of empire.
Few ever get beyond these "plays" to understand the genuine motivations behind the dark, diabolical, covert acts of empire.
========
SiouxRose -- in the same sentence you gave the answer to the question in the sentence:
the "genuine motivations behind the dark, diabolical, covert acts of empire" -- if that was a question, is answered by:
"DARK, DIABOLICAL COVERT ACTS OF EMPIRE".
it is like Torture -- as some have said and we ought to know by instinct only:
"THE TRUE REASON for Torture is ........TO torture".
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: As you probably can gather from my favored subject matter, my interest is in finding those Truths that would bring light to darkness, and heal the wounded parts of human nature; for it is this, that is essentially broken and lacking wholeness, that has led again and again to calamitous outcomes. (Of course IT is helped along by inherently unfair public policies, and systems of economic compensation that foster class or caste covert warfare.) I study the spiritual anatomy (of human beings), as it were, as it's always been my hope to help usher in a different basis for collective understanding, a means for assisting persons in transcending those ideologies that, like self-perpetuating, habitual feedback loops lead to recurrent violence. There are other ways to live, to design societies, and to heal the scar tissue that has impacted so much of mass consciousness for far too long.
LIGHT happens.
I repeat once again that trying to solve Afghanistan as a war all by itself will continue to fail and will waste more time (8 years so far and no progress made).
The global DAFT war against terrorism must be dealt with in its entirety. This will be the only successful peace strategy.
- this seemingly endless war -
well, duh. It's a war to prevent future terrorism, which is an impossibility to achieve. The military will fight this forever, because that's what they were tasked to do by our rotten Congress, who once again are not held responsible for anything (in a CD article), while Santa Obama is again begged to solve this for us all by himself.
- President Obama is coming under attack from the Right -
So, the Progressive strategy is to try to change America's attitude to this madness by begging Santa? ("Obama should go with the people").
Solving America's dilemma of war/peace cannot be accomplished by one political wing over the other. Only a UNITED people will get out of this mess, and the general national support needed for such a sea-change will only be gained if a multi-partisan strategy is adopted.
End the DAFT war by repealing the law that started it, just as we repealed Prohibition when it obviously failed.
bligh4
Afghanistan is not worth it. Not because of the old "we are fighting to build a pipeline" trope. We could pump oil through any conceivable pipeline, take all the money generated, and do this for the next 200 years without paying for the cost of this war-not to mention the soldiers and civilians lost.
It's because the entire war has devolved into an idiotic attempt at "nation building". Building schools, roads, clinics, ect. have not done a thing to settle the conflict. Bombing the hell out of the Taliban has not done it either. The fact that the other guys are responsible for 2/3's of the civilian deaths does nothing to offset our responsibility of the other 1/3- and we are getting 100 percent of the blame.
Sure, the Taliban will probably take the country over again. And yes, they will try to move it back to a country where music is illegal and women are forbidden to leave their houses- but that is the Afghans problem.
Declare victory and leave them to sort it out for themselves.
The Taliban would not exist if the US weren't funding it in the first place. The Taliban won't take over when the US butts out and stops funding it.
The Taliban will indeed take over and move them back to the 14th century, but it should not be our problem.
Let them stone people to death for trying to leave the Islamic faith, for adultery, for being gay. Let them kill people for not agreeing to worship their faith. Let them kill their women for small slights, beart them senseless because they have the right. These are very bad folks, but it is the Afgan people that will have to decide if thats the way they want to live.
We are not funding the Taliban.
You WERE funding the Taliban.
As to the now, I am pretty certain some of that Aid Money given to Pakistan finds its way to the Taliban.
I also suspect that as they did in Central America and South East Asia, the good old CIA is involved in the heroin trade .
Gw, thanks. I expected Henry8 to be helpful on this but I find your answer interesting. Sorry I'm not good at foreign policy. It's all too complicated and there's enough mess here in the country to deal with. :(
Just to show you how hypocrtical the US Government is AND as a corally how henry8th just like to avoid the TRUTH when it does not fit his worldview.
The Jihadist textbooks that flooded the madrassa's in Pakistan and Afghanistan...Those same textbooks preaching the Evils of the West and of the USSR and exhorthing followers to join Jihad against the foreigners were printed IN the USA by the Millions and shipped to those same Schools even while GW Bush was President.
The Taliban were more then willing to use these US published textbooks in their schools.
This is not new. The British helped found The Muslim Bortherhood in Egypt way back. They funded Fundamentalists and ENCOURAGED them to Violence.
Israel helped to found Hamas.
Correcto.
Because religious fundamentalists of all stripes hate the left, socialists and communists who were leading nationalist movements in the Middle East in the post-WWII period. Saddam Hussein helped the CIA butcher the membership of the Iraqi Communist Party, you will recall.
Incidentally, the Israelis were responsible for most of the car bombs in Lebanon a couple of decades ago. It is fair to say that the Mossad probably has agents in every organization in the Middle East.
This is more embarrassing than I even knew. This is yet another strong example of the corporate and military elites scratching each others' backs. I almost feel like throwing up. :(
Your last sentence on Israel is a shocker.
If you are perfectly aware of this, I apologize if I'm insulting your intelligence.
Just from watching TV, I know that professional firefighters employ "backfires" to control wilderness (forest) fires. Backfires involve deliberately burning out areas of vegetation close to the perimeter of the main fire (or whatever they call it) to create a boundary to the main fire.
If I understand the process, the backfires are controlled and extinguished so that the main fire stops in its tracks without fuel to feed it. Then the firefighters can concentrate on the fire itself. If successful, there's far less damage than there would be if the fire raged unchecked and was extinguished piecemeal.
State security and intelligence services, including the military, employ a similar principle. There are always spooks on the ground to encourage and sponsor insurgencies. The resulting insurgent "backfires" are loosely controlled, with the objective of containing and undermining the main enemy. Unfortunately, as with so many aspects of that noble craft, the "backfires" invariably are left to spin out of control and become major fires of their own.
At which point, the government pretends that, I don't know, Satan suddenly put the latest bunch of the Worst of the Worst to Hate Our Freedoms and threaten our glorious way of life.
And the beat goes on.
· Yr Obd't Servant
A good analogy BUT in most cases the "Imperial Powers" do not fund these groups to fight fire with fire or to "expose then eliminate" the peoples who would become Fundamentalists.
They do it as a counter to Nationalism.
The British funded the Muslim Bortherhood as a counter to Egyptian Nationalists who threatened the British Control of the Suez Canal.
They did the very same in Iran when they wished to maintain control of the oil there wherein they funded and supported fundamentalists to stave off the Nationalists who were preparing to kick the British out.
Israel wanted to counter the power of the Palestinian Nationalists seeking a homeland. By supporting Hamas they divided the Palestinians against themselves then used Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel to maintain support for Israel in the West.
Nasser advocated Pan Arabism. That is the Arab nations grouping together as one, loosening restrictions on their borders and uniting to from a Monolithic block that along with its oil resources and population would become THE regional power in the Middle East.
This is the last thing The Europeans, The USA or Israel wanted so they did all they could to ensure it went nowheres.
The LAST thing the USA and Europe want is a peaceful Middle East under Secular and democratic Governments. They will do all in their power to ensure these nations remain weak and fighting amongst themselves even if it means the support of "terrorists" and "fundamentalists".
I also think you know all this stuff too :)
Thanks for the corrective refinement and clarification of my point.
You'r quite correct, of course, that countering nationalism is the purpose of the "backfires".
Sometimes my imagination leaves my knowledge behind; I was taken by the scenario of the US (and other imperialist nations in history) deliberately fomenting internal conflict for its own ulterior purposes, with ignorance and indifference to the eventual consequences of this intervention.
· Yr Obd't Servant
What about the CIA that funded, trained, and armed Osama bin Laden? I understand that the Taliban is a symptom of angry Afghans fed up with foreign intervention and control but I think butting out needs to be completely thorough. I would have thought that defunding the Taliban would give the Afghan civilians power for a change.
On your last sentence, then who exactly is it that's funding the Taliban? Sorry my foreign policy knowledge is still very weak.
"It's because the entire war has devolved into an idiotic attempt at "nation building". Building schools, roads, clinics, ect. have not done a thing to settle the conflict."
In a cable sent to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry said an additional $2.5 billion in nonmilitary spending will be needed for 2010, about 60 percent more than the amount President Obama has requested from Congress. The increase is needed "if we are to show progress in the next 14 months," Eikenberry wrote in the cable, according to sources who have seen it.
Obama has asked for $68 billion in Defense Department spending in Afghanistan next year, an amount that for the first time would exceed U.S. military expenditures in Iraq. Spending on civilian governance and development programs has doubled under the Obama administration, to $200 million a month -- equal to the monthly rate in Iraq during the zenith of spending on nonmilitary projects there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/11/
AR2009081103341.html
Why would Obama retract his siding with the warmongers now that he won the now tainted "Nobel Peace Prize" ?