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Published on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Uncle Sam in Afghanistan: Good Help Is Hard to Find
Almost eight years after choosing Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan
government, Uncle Sam would like to give him a pink slip. But it’s
not easy. And the grim fiasco of Afghanistan’s last election is
shadowing the next.
Another display of electioneering and voting has been ordered up from Washington. But after a chemical mix has blown a hole through the roof -- with all the elements for massive fraud still in place -- what’s the point of throwing together the same ingredients?
This time, the spinners in Washington hope to be better prepared.
Unless the best and brightest who oversee Afghan war policy can rig up a coalition with the top two contestants, a runoff between Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah will happen November 7. What’s on the bill between now and then is a pantomime of electoral democracy.
After such a show, the predictable encore will be further escalation of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.
The runoff election has not been scheduled for the benefit of Afghan society. Many millions of people in Afghanistan are now bracing themselves. Every factor that boosted the crescendo of violence last time, cresting with several hundred insurgent attacks on election day, is still present.
The days between now and the scheduled runoff will bring heightened fear, more violence, more killing. And for what?
As with the last election, the intended beneficiaries are far from Afghanistan. In Kabul, shortly after the August 20 vote, I heard many Afghans comment that the purpose of the election was to satisfy North America and Western Europe.
Meanwhile, who is this guy Abdullah, often hyped but rarely scrutinized by the U.S. news media?
At the end of August, when I interviewed the courageous Afghan antiwar feminist Malalai Joya in Kabul, she put it this way: You can give a warlord a shave, a haircut and an expensive suit, but he’s still a warlord.
The most grisly years in Afghanistan’s capital were from 1992 to 1996, when dueling warlords mercilessly rocketed and shelled Kabul. Slaughter of civilians in the city was routine. Estimates of deaths among Kabul residents during those years range from 50,000 to 65,000. Abdullah was one of the warlords most directly engaged in ordering the carnage.
Now the Obama administration and congressional leaders -- with Sen. John Kerry playing a starring role in recent days -- are making a determined effort to legitimize the Afghan government as a prelude to further U.S. escalation of the war.
This kind of thing happened so many times during the Vietnam War that people lost count. The assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem in early November 1963 was an especially dramatic delivery of a pink slip from the White House. What followed was a procession of corrupt human-rights abusers who led South Vietnam’s government.
Some, like bit player Nguyen Khanh, are barely remembered. Others, notably Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu, had staying power as Uncle Sam’s servants in Saigon. And the Pentagon machinery kept revving its gears.
“We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality," freelance American reporter Michael Herr observed in Vietnam. "Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop." In the midst of military escalation, the hopeful stories we tell ourselves -- and the tales that top U.S. officials and mass media keep tweaking and repeating -- are whistling past other people’s graveyards.
Doing some whistling themselves, many progressives have exaggerated the extent of recent concerns about this war among Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House. Tactical disputes and strategic reviews should not be mistaken for willingness to move away from a basic policy of endless war.
While the absence of democracy in Afghanistan is glaring, the failure of democracy in the United States is pernicious. At the grassroots, we have yet to grasp the magnitude of this war’s momentum -- or to exercise our capacities to stop it.
Another display of electioneering and voting has been ordered up from Washington. But after a chemical mix has blown a hole through the roof -- with all the elements for massive fraud still in place -- what’s the point of throwing together the same ingredients?
This time, the spinners in Washington hope to be better prepared.
Unless the best and brightest who oversee Afghan war policy can rig up a coalition with the top two contestants, a runoff between Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah will happen November 7. What’s on the bill between now and then is a pantomime of electoral democracy.
After such a show, the predictable encore will be further escalation of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.
The runoff election has not been scheduled for the benefit of Afghan society. Many millions of people in Afghanistan are now bracing themselves. Every factor that boosted the crescendo of violence last time, cresting with several hundred insurgent attacks on election day, is still present.
The days between now and the scheduled runoff will bring heightened fear, more violence, more killing. And for what?
As with the last election, the intended beneficiaries are far from Afghanistan. In Kabul, shortly after the August 20 vote, I heard many Afghans comment that the purpose of the election was to satisfy North America and Western Europe.
Meanwhile, who is this guy Abdullah, often hyped but rarely scrutinized by the U.S. news media?
At the end of August, when I interviewed the courageous Afghan antiwar feminist Malalai Joya in Kabul, she put it this way: You can give a warlord a shave, a haircut and an expensive suit, but he’s still a warlord.
The most grisly years in Afghanistan’s capital were from 1992 to 1996, when dueling warlords mercilessly rocketed and shelled Kabul. Slaughter of civilians in the city was routine. Estimates of deaths among Kabul residents during those years range from 50,000 to 65,000. Abdullah was one of the warlords most directly engaged in ordering the carnage.
Now the Obama administration and congressional leaders -- with Sen. John Kerry playing a starring role in recent days -- are making a determined effort to legitimize the Afghan government as a prelude to further U.S. escalation of the war.
This kind of thing happened so many times during the Vietnam War that people lost count. The assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem in early November 1963 was an especially dramatic delivery of a pink slip from the White House. What followed was a procession of corrupt human-rights abusers who led South Vietnam’s government.
Some, like bit player Nguyen Khanh, are barely remembered. Others, notably Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu, had staying power as Uncle Sam’s servants in Saigon. And the Pentagon machinery kept revving its gears.
“We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality," freelance American reporter Michael Herr observed in Vietnam. "Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop." In the midst of military escalation, the hopeful stories we tell ourselves -- and the tales that top U.S. officials and mass media keep tweaking and repeating -- are whistling past other people’s graveyards.
Doing some whistling themselves, many progressives have exaggerated the extent of recent concerns about this war among Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House. Tactical disputes and strategic reviews should not be mistaken for willingness to move away from a basic policy of endless war.
While the absence of democracy in Afghanistan is glaring, the failure of democracy in the United States is pernicious. At the grassroots, we have yet to grasp the magnitude of this war’s momentum -- or to exercise our capacities to stop it.
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39 Comments so far
Show AllGood article-- Abdullah Abdullah being a Tajik who the USA are arming and training to subdue the majority Pastuns is probably why they prefer him and not Karzai who wishes( even though they killed his father) to broker a peace treaty with the Talibs.
" The failure of democracy in the United States is pernicious". Yeah, maybe we can bring the troops back here to bring us freedom and democracy!
paul, we might as well - there ain't no other jobs for them.
But, if they are brought back, I'm afraid they will be used to enforce the freedom and democracy we ain't got.
But I could be wrong !
Someday, after our government and economy collapse and our Chinese creditors decide to establish "democracy" in our failed state, maybe they will be as generous and offer us a choice between John Gotti and Bernie Madoff.
Yeah, after all, we had George W. as president for 8 years and he never won either election fairly. Gore got the most votes in 2000 and Ohio, without which Bush would have lost to Kerry, was clearly stolen.
So what's a few million non-existent voters in Afghanistan? What difference does it make anyway? The entire thing is a farce.
One cannot have a democracy when one doesn't have the rule of law. You certainly can't have a democracy when you've been occupied or invaded. There is no way anyone who gets 'elected' in Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter) can tell the occupiers to leave and expect to survive, the new Quislings know that they'll be killed should their protectors leave their country.
Good help won't be found in Afghanistan, the only people who would work with the occupiers are those who the rest of the population will regard as traitors.
Yep.
you can't have a democracy if your "patron UNCLE SAM" is a FASCIST entity pretending to be a democracy...
just ask the IRANIANS about UNCLE SAM destroying THEIR democracy in 1955......
'53, but well observed.
Do you suspect that's what the "Supreme Court" reference is about above?
Thanks for the correction, Bardamu. and yes, i also suspect that's what the Supreme court reference is about.
what's really happening is - they are "gently" forcing Karzai to "accept" DEMOTION - in order to make way for some other prefered US lackey - such as perhaps the former American "ambassador" of Afghan extraction but is a Neocon and wanna be ruler of Afghanistan...because Karzai has made too many "deals" with tribes against the USA...
if it was still rigged and karzai would win BUT karzai remained "true" to the US dictates and not try to make himself more palatable to certain factions opposed to the USA - you can BET the usa would say nothing about that.
if he STILL wins the run-off - the USA will have utilized the "repeat" as a way to say "see? we stood up for legitimacy,,,he won but by LESS approval by the afghanis"...
and so - he Stays in power but , momentarily, for the US calculation - is WEAKENED - to BUY TIME for the USA to promote a "successor" under SUPPOSEDLY "more democratic ways".
that's the US gambit playing here , alright.
i am certain of it. just as certain as long ago suspected that Bush -even before becoming president WANTED war by any means.and that he was just waiting for an excuse of such dramatic proportions to pull the trigger,,,whose consequences we are still seeing today .. SPREADING war deep into central asia
for the express purpose of DESTABILIZING the region
so that the US multinational War corporations can make a KILLING by provoking more and more countries ...
that's the real game of the united states of america.
these declared "concerns" about "legitimacy" of this or that regime are only sideshows for the REAL policy of the USA - continued warfare, destabilization, regime changes
to MAKE the region, all of middle east, and all of central asia -- in the "image of the USA"...and THEN
from THERE - continue to surround, encircle and even destabilize China and Russia.
BET ON IT! the USA is SO transparent on this one. it's written as clearly as if you looked at the face of someone hiding all the wrinkles with heavy make-up and they're still THERE.
I have to agree with the poster who said that the whole election thing is a farce; as many others have asked, how do you have an election in a war zone where much of the country can't even vote? It might look like an election . . .
I realize that Attention Is Being Paid to this cockamamie runoff, but I still haven't found a satisfactory answer to the question of what's to stop the vote-hijackers from doing the same thing with the "runoff" as they did with the botched election that required the "runoff" solution in the first place.
I'm sure that, like Tammany Hall-- and Chicago, for that matter-- they'll be happy to throw as many "elections" as necessary against the wall until one finally sticks.
Will there be a series of diminishing runoffs, until Karzai and his final opponent just duke it out in the parking lot?
· Yr Obd't Servant
Does Afghanistan have a Supreme Court? Couldn't we just have the court decide the election?
Kent aka EKATON
yes yes -- why NOT? and use DIEBOLD BOXES....
I've heard Karzai's coalition is about to collapse. He might actually lose this runoff and it could be landslide. I'll believe it when I see it though.
well...the reason UNCLE SAM is finding it harder to find "good help" is because those who "helped" keep finding out UNCLE SAM
is a MOLESTER.
he molests countries and people.
UNCLE SAM has a long History of Molestation:
Ask South america
ask southeast asia
ask china
ask the middle east
ask africa
ask countries who thought Uncle sam is "nice" in eastern europe
ask Russia
ask Central Asia
even ...ask canada
also ask the FORMER natives of a little island of Diego Garcia in the Indian OCean where Uncle Sam kicked them out forcibly to make way for Uncle Sam's Troops and Bombs and ships in the Indian Ocean....
oh -- ask iran TOO..that actually helped uncle sam right after 9/11 to try and find bin laden..
even AMERICANS are finding out "UNCLE SAM" isn't very nice...not nice at all..he SPIES on them ..he makes friends with people in wall street that are fleecing them up the nose and their behinds...and if he protest against global warming, he calls them "terrorists" even if they're CANADIAN....
I agree with your post, just want to point out that "officially" Diego Garcia is BRITISH... the Brits removed the natives and then leased the place to the US for our air force and navy bases there...
but even you will have to admit, just because a person is Canadian, does not mean that he/she is NOT a terrorist. To add to your story though.... back in either 69 or 70, we had a person who successfully petitioned to get out of the army (ASA) because he found out that the group we were assigned to monitored the Vatican...
yes - i knew that it is British ( as if it being british tells us WHY the british and the USA are in the INDIAN OCEAN thousands of miles away ) ...
and I know about the lease...but the salient point is, not so much that it is british or "leased to the USA" -0- but that the natives were removed to accomodate the USA - or the british, as it may ...
the point being
it is another of the USA's Global Empire of Bases - at the expense of the natives.
in fact - what makes it more dastardly is that
it is 2 Stages of Hypocrisy:
it is "british" only because the british managed to KEEP it as a vestige of their Indian Part of their own now-collapsed empire - and a reflection and REMINDER of what these TWO nations, in particular, the BRITISH and their "empire progeny" the USA - STILL can't wean themselves away from -- wishing to RULE the WORLD...where it once was "RULE BRITANNIA"
it is "PAX AMERICANA"
and the other stage is - BEHIND teh facade of "british sovereignty" the USA LEASES it - to "hide" its actual usage....
and who get the boot? the NATIVES, as usual.
hi - i DO want to thank you for your valuable input. Thanks
And the Diego Garcia natives themselves were "descendants of African slaves and Hindu laborers brought to the islands by the French in the 18th century" (Wiki)
I nominate the DG 'natives' for inclusion in the list of 'people really shitted upon by other so-called humans'.
------
'just because a person is Canadian, does not mean that he/she is NOT a terrorist.'
Everybody is a potential future terrorist, and will be treated as such by the authorities just as soon as someone can take advantage and profit from it.
After all, the US pays hundreds of thousands of people to find future terrorists worldwide. People will justify their jobs by finding/creating/imagining future terrorists.
Read the law that started this. It does not say that future terrorists would only be hunted in Afghanistan and other far-away places.
This DAFT war plays in 194 theaters worldwide.
"exercise our capacities to stop it"?
What capacities? When in the history of American foreign wars has public opinion ever even been considered, except insofar as it can be manipulated?
"Democracy" such as it is in America, simply does not extend into the overseas conduct of the Empire. That's why Obama almost laughingly asked Jodie Evans of Code Pink, "you don't really expect this thing to be over soon, do you?".
It isn't just the election that is being played out for American (and European) political consumption. It's the war itself, which is being fought primarily to enrich war contractors and increase military control over domestic affairs. The realities of Afghanistan and the Afghan people really having nothing whatever to do with our war (and it is our war). Their job is to suffer and die obligingly for the greater glory of Empire.
For now, we supply the grunts and the bombs and they supply the bodies. The show must go on...
"When . . . has public opinion . . . been considered . . . ?"
Constantly.
The Governator of California aside, politicians are not powerful because they have big, rippling muscles, but because they manage to manipulate cooperation from a large part of the population.
You can bet they pay close attention when the nature of that cooperation threatens to change. That's why they spend money on publicity and all manner of elaborate lies.
There's no need to trust me on this--thankfully, since no one ever seems to! A fellow CD'er recently sent me to Gene Sharp. I think you will find that Sharp's work thoroughly and convincingly, even profusely refutes this impression of helplessness.
I found the following impressive:
-- Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice And 21st Century Potential
-- Power and Struggle (Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 1)
-- Methods of Nonviolent Action (Politics of Nonviolent Action Part 2)
-- Dynamics of Nonviolent Action (Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 3)
There are other works that I have not gotten to.
Amazon's got the latter three pretty cheap right now. Pick up what you can from the Einstein Institute; it's even cheaper:
http://www.aeinstein.org/
I saw some Afghanis on TV last night and they seemed genuinely angry about the prospects of another election. Not because they support Karzai but because of the violence it will bring. America, spreaders of Democracy. Forget the precursors to Democracy like a roof over your head, food, education and security. We'll export this Democracy like a can of peas. How they continue to pimp this Democracy thing to the American public is beyond me. Especially when ours is in shambles.
"At the grassroots, we have yet to grasp the magnitude of this war’s momentum -- or to exercise our capacities to stop it"
Perhaps it's a matter of grasping basic statistics, and ethics. If each and every USan wrote one email to bam bam saying stop the war, he'd stop it. If only one quarter of USans did so, he'd stop it. Now Kant's categorical imperative says if everyone does it and it's good, then it's good for each to do. So do your part to exert the public will on the government. Remember, this is a lesson in basic statistics/ethics. Try focusing on such a lesson, and learn it.
Abdullah was an aide to Ahmad Shah Massoud, the so-called Lion of Panjshir, who led the Tajik resistance to the Soviet invasion and who was assassinated by Bin Laden's agents at the time of 9/11. Massoud was notable in his independence from CIA and Pakistani controllers, as well as from extreme Islamist groups, during that war. Massoud also had the common Afghani warlord trait of changing sides, as circumstances dictated. Whether Abdullah has the same mix of talents is unknown.
Your point that this run-off election will simply be a pretext for sending more US troops into this mass graveyard is, unfortunately, almost certainly true.
How about spreading a little democracy in the USA first.
Public radio tells me the NSA can hear what I say through my cell phone even if it is turned off. I feel like Winston Smith.
Anybody listening to my conversations would be bored to death but I still don't like it. I resent it like hell, and I've had the line "If you've got nothing to hide..." pitched to me by a former employer. We didn't get along.
"How about spreading a little democracy in the USA first." Naw. It's against U.S. "National Security" and "national" interests, to have real democracy. The NSA? Same thing; it has to protect U.S. "National" ... "Security". Democracy is a threat in the views of the national security ... "experts".
The U.S. will make sure that who ever is elected or appointed will be a "safe" bet for the imperialist, ... elites of the U.S. If they end up putting a person into the Afghan presidential seat who turns out to be a foe, then ... the U.S. is accustomed to employing the technique of assassination.
Afghanistan's opium funds global terrorism, caters to 15 million addicts, and kills 100,000 people a year, the UN says. (BBC) [Note that the Taliban had it shut down.]
We have George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney and their Evangelical and Catholic supporters to thank for this global human catastrophy. Now Johnnie comes marching home again murdered, maimed, mindless and hooked on heroin. Republicans must be so pleased with themselves.
They just don't care. Statistics are abstractions but nothing is more real to a Republican than the value of his investments relative to what he paid for them.
Jonnie's pain is real he has a lifetime to live with guilt, PTS syndrome, regret, and the loss of the Norman Rockwell America. Life on a battlefield is life reduced to it's simplest terms. To understand it there is to understand it everywhere. He can never forget that, never go back to the illusions we cherish.
The ultimate evil is making that which is concrete seem to be abstract.
It is one sad commentary after another..the only solution is leaving as soon as possible and let the warlords rule their country...in the way they like: corrupt, vicious and without regard for others..let them get back to poppy production so they can continue to export drugs and terrorism...
No wonder the U.S. elites like those war lords as much as they do. They're likes, or alike. If you hadn't specified "warlords", then I could've sworn you were talking about the U.S., for its political and military leadership, CIA ops, ... and their rulers. You would've been right on both counts, but only spoke of the "warlords" of Afghanistan; forgetting the super-warlords of Earth.
The new Japanese government can see the handwriting on the wall: the US Empire is wobbling and spending itself into gigantic debts with at least two non-winnable wars in Asia. That government seems to have learned from past history; how exceptional! To survive economically and politically in the world you do not invade China, you become a partner of China, even at the expense of angering the US. And angering the US the new government already has. Secretary Gates is huffing and puffing because the new government has the temerity of possibly refusing to renew the refueling-agreement on Guam coming January! Unfortunately for the Obama administration Japan is not a pig's straw hovel any longer. Apparently Obama has not yet noticed.
It is somewhat disturbing to me that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan crowd out the news from much of the remainder of the world, especially Japan on Common Dreams. Well, dream on!
- the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan crowd out the news -
We all suffer from this here - I would much rather rant and rave about my newest idea:
We put a man on the moon, now it's time to put a mom on the moon, within 10 years. She will flip a switch that will turn on a light that can seen from Earth.
But instead I must spend my time ending the DAFT* war because that's the biggest problem in the world today, and could even be the last problem we'll ever face, if we don't stop the madness before it stops us.
The DAFT war sucks all our resources away (time, people, money) so that we have nothing left for locust dreams or Crowsnest dreams.
-- Thanks for observations about Japan. As the USH (United States Homeland) becomes ever more totalitarian, the rest of the world will HAVE to unite against it in order to survive. I have played this scenario (in wargames) several times and it's never pretty, and usually ends up with the world in a death spiral.
America must be taken from being America AT WAR to America, a nation at peace, in order that our dreams can be realized.
*Defense against Future Terrorism
Norman Solomon, in closing, says, "At the grassroots, we have yet to grasp the magnitude of this war’s momentum", which is true. The following article describes another part of the overall picture ... of the West's world war, or war on this world, today.
"Geo-Strategic Chessboard: War Between India and China?",
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Oct 17 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7453
One problem in Afghanistan, and throughout that region, is that political borders drawn by Britain in the 19th Century are irrelevant. For one thing, they split tribes in half along the Pakistan/Afghan border, and those tribes interact across that border as though it weren't there. (To them, it isn't.) The same case exists with the Kurds in Iraq, who are split between three countries. We are forcing creation of a democracy in a country that has been run by tribal factions throughout history, and there is no legitimacy to the government that we are forming ... forcing ... upon them.
As in Iraq, _we_ are not going to solve the problems that exist in Afghanistan. We have created some of the problems, but they really were created when Britain formed the political borders during the 19th Century and after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in WW I. We need to get the hell out of the way and quit trying to force then to "be like us". Our democracy thrust completely ignores the history and culture of those countries. It is not for us to solve. We need to let them solve their political issues, and if that results in a government that isn't to our liking, that is too bad. _We_ have to accept what they decide.