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TechnoratiA Muddle Called Afghanistan
It is impossible to win a war that you cannot define. That seems to be the main lesson to be drawn from Afghanistan, where a so-called victory seems ever more unreachable. It is also the conclusion of several experts on the region, who fear U.S. forces would be mired forever in that unjustly punished country. .
Sometimes, people not geared for war can offer insights into a war situation that professional warriors cannot do. In 2001, U.S. writer Philip Caputo offered a unique insight into the Afghan psychology. He had spent a month in Afghanistan with the mujahedeen as a reporter, during the Afghans' decade-long war with the Soviets.
At some point in the 1980s, he was accompanying a platoon of mujahedeen who were escorting 1,000 refugees into Pakistan. They had to cross a mountain torrent on a very primitive bridge, consisting essentially of two logs laid side by side. In front of him was a 10-year-old boy, separated from his family, his feet swollen from several days of barefoot marching.
When Caputo realized that the boy was terrified thinking that he could fall into the rapids below, he carried him to the other side. With the help of his interpreter he found the father and handed the boy to him. The father, rather than thanking him slapped the boy in the face and poked Caputo in the chest, shouting angrily at him. Caputo was obviously shocked.
He asked his interpreter about the boy father's reaction and the interpreter explained to him, "He is angry at the boy for not crossing on his own, and angry with you for helping him. Now, he says, his son will expect somebody to help him whenever he runs into difficulties."
Caputo concludes, "Well, that little boy probably learned. I don't know what became of him, but in my imagination, I see our troops encountering him: now 31, inured to hardship and accustomed to combat, unafraid of death, with an army of men like him at his side."
In a few words, Caputo magisterially captured the strength of the Afghan soldier, able to fight with the most primitive weapons against the greatest empires on earth. When these soldiers feel their land usurped by foreign forces, their strength is multiplied. And this is just one of the obstacles confronting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
There are increasing doubts that a plain increase in the number of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan can lead to a victory progressively more difficult to define. Matthew Hoh, a former Foreign Service officer and former Marine Corps captain who became the first U.S. official to resign in protest over the Afghan war, declared to the Washington Post, "Upon arriving in Afghanistan and serving in both the East and South (and particularly speaking with local Afghans) I found that the majority of those who were fighting us and the Afghan central government were fighting us because they felt occupied."
Can an increase in the number of foreign forces subdue a naturally proud and nationalistic people? In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, U.S. National Security adviser Mr. James Jones offered a sobering view. When asked whether he agreed with General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, that a troop increase was needed he responded, "Generals always ask for more troops....You can keep on putting troops in, and you could have 200,000 troops there and Afghanistan will swallow them up as it has done in the past."
Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires. It should more properly be called the graveyard of illusions.
20 Comments so far
Show AllMore double speak. Their plan from the beginning was to make war perpetual. The cash registers, squared, cubed, shrink wrapped on palettes, and growing exponentially, ring with every tick of the clock.
Muddled? No.
Ending the war is their muddle.
It's a war very easy to define: another war criminal atrocity by the US empire.
Since the entire occupation of Afghanistan is illegal, it can't really be termed a war.
We invaded afghanistan to "get Bin Laden dead or alive" which is laughable. It was in response to the inside job of 9/11 which has unfortunately hooked in the uneducated majority of Americans. (Which is also laughable)
SO years later with tens of thousands of people dead, were still gonna "get Bin Laden" and we're even setting up a kangaroo court to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who confessed after being tortured for 4 years) and 4 others.
(Note the absence of laughter at this point)
It's stunning that this can even occur on our soil, in our time, and under our noses.
If you execute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for 9/11, make sure you bury our flag with him because we will have killed ourselves.
It might be the graveyard of empires but it's corporate hog heaven.
. . . U.S. forces would be mired forever . . .
That's exactly what they want. "They" being the MIC/Republican/Democrat scumbags.
a war you can define is: to conquor and occupy Afghanistan and Pakistan to control the gas pipeline from Gasfieldistan that avoids Russia and Iran. Suffering and death to the civilians and military, cost to the taxpayers and profits to the Cheney Oil Cabal. This is why General MacMayhem wants more human sacrifices.
Correct. No matter how bad it gets, the U.S. won't leave. They won't let China get control of Caspian-gas routes. A popular rumour in Afghanistan is that the U.S. and Britain are flying Taliban fighters into the countryside to keep the war going.
http://freepublictransit.org
" It is impossible to win a war you cannot define". That is exactly why the MIC loves the oxymoron of the war on terror because it is like having a war on hate, it can be endless. THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA IS WAR...and since we are in the war business, no wars mean very little business and endless wars mean lots of business, for the MIC. How they must love having a war on an idea that they never need to end!
Well, at least there is some little progress in the right direction. A few weeks ago President Obama told soldiers "I will not send you into harm's way unless absolutely necessary". In Alaska he yesterday told another group of soldiers "I will not send you into harm's way unless necessary". The logical next step is to tell all soldiers "I will not send you into harm's way" but do not bet that he will actually say that.
With regards to necessity, President Obama like his predecessor, completely ignores the Charter of the United Nations which our country has signed, I believe.
My suspicion is the U.S. military well knows Afghanistan is "unwinnable." Evidence is lack in any source of an identity of what would constitute "victory." Assuming this, the best explanation of the motivation of the U.S. military is employment. Much like NASA, which has never forgotten the dismantling of the space program in the 1970s after the moon landing, eyeing the economic circumstance in the U.S., the military is deathly afraid (pun intended) a pullout from Afghanistan will initiate an across the board cutback in military spending. Indeed, the Obama administration might well concur, perceiving the military and its concomitant industrial complex a make-work program keeping thousands from what would otherwise be unemployment.
Even erstwhile "progressive" Paul Krugman asserted in a past column although military expenditure is less productive in the long run, it is productive in the short run. Overlooked, of course, is the economic inability to determine what constitutes the short and long run. Thus, the short run converts into the long run until matters go "crash." Only after this does the economist profoundly pronounce foolishness of "long term" policy. Following the economic "reasoning," then, if the military and administration are focused on a jobs program, the U.S. is in the pitiful position of killing and maiming people to keep people employed.
Just another "Big Muddle".
What the author of the piece, Cesar Chelala, and perhaps the writer he references, Philip Caputo, does not mention from the telling incident (which beggars independent reading of Caputo's work) is which one of Afghanistan's peoples the father and son happen to be. More than likely, they are Pashtun, as such tales of toughness taught from childhood are rife from those people. Habituates of this site know well that I harp on this repeatedly, but it is necessary: any useful discussion of Afghanistan must acknowledge that the idea of a central unified state is an impossibility. While the episode should be instructive in terms of the toughness of the individual "Afghan" warrior, mention should also be made of what people and tribe said warrior comes from. To tramp around Afghanistan without knowing who is who and why is a sure recipe for failure in a country that is difficult enough already for those who actually know the lay of the land.
Afghanistan may never have been as centralized as the USA but considering they were a bonifide recognized and just as valid a nation as the USA for 100 years with a continuous peaceful succession of dynastic Monarchs one would be askance to claim what was already is not a possibilty again.
And again do not forget the Taliban had enough centralized control to eliminate 90% of the poppy cultivation and suppress womens rights.
The typical imperial war propaganda justification protrays the other as inferior, ungovernable and primative.
Many USAans having trouble shedding their "exceptionalism" mentality fostered by the greatest propaganda apparatus to ever exist.
"And again do not forget the Taliban had enough centralized control to eliminate 90% of the poppy cultivation and suppress womens rights."
Regarding the poppy cultivation decline due to the Taliban (working with the UN), I have read several times from different feature article writers with articles at www.globalresearch.ca that this reduction was mostly in a region or in regions of Afghanistan that were under Taliban control, which I believe the north wasn't.
And with respect to the oppression of Afghan women's rights, this was not only because of the Taliban. The Northern Alliance war and drug lords, which I've never seen the Taliban called, were even more oppressive (viciously so) than the Taliban were. An Afghan woman of RAWA interviewed by John Pilger was what a January 2009 or 2008 article by him was for and she said both were oppressive towards women's rights, but she also drew a distinction. She said women could walk around society or Taliban-controlled society in safety, for the Taliban severely punished men for committing violent acts against women. It was still oppressive, but what the interviewee said about the Northern Alliance war and drug lords was even much worse. She said they were quite vicious rapists and would even forcefully enter homes to rape women there, as well as outside of homes. So they had physical safety with the Taliban government; just that that rule was oppressive with respect to education, marriage, and perhaps some other rights. Well, I guess women also weren't allowed to be members of the government. They had physical safety, which they didn't have with the NA war and drug lords.
The Taliban could not control all of Afghanistan and their reduction of poppies was apparently in areas under their control. However, in what I have read, they did reduce poppy cultivation by over 90% and I think that one or more articles also said that Northern Alliance drug and war lords did obtain opium from Taliban-controlled areas, without the Taliban's involvement.
Yet, we mustn't forget that these Afghan males aren't the only people who've been and are oppressive towards women's rights. Even Christian churches have been, and the RCC continues to discriminate. Iran is oppressive. Anyone who thinks that punishing women who're victims is not oppression needs to wake up, but worse, the punishment for women who're victims of rape receive public punishment, to the death, with lapidation. There are also "enough" Mormons in the U.S. and probably Canada who are oppressive towards women, as well as young males. And there are more people who oppress women's rights. This is certainly no reason for military warfare; it only calls for real, serious, dedicated diplomacy accompanied by good incentives. War is not the answer; although you, glenn ford, never said that it was and I don't mean to imply that you did.
Anyone who thinks that the U.S. prison and justice systems in the U.S. do not illustrate severe oppression also needs to WAKE UP.
Normally, when a person is sick and needs care, then he or she doesn't look for another sick person to do this; preferring a healthy person to provide the care. Afghan women don't have much hope if they're counting on the U.S. to resolve injustices in their country. The U.S. is the sickest Beast on Earth.
Mike I agree with your assessments the USA backed Northern Alliance( athough it was as individual Warlords, prior to being united by the USA) raped murdered and pillaged until the Taliban instilled Sharia Law and Order.
The Taliban had control of about 80% of the nation, with only a remnant of resistance in the Northeast. Even now with 200,000 occupiers they control roughly half the nation.
Rethinking what is meant by Taliban in USA speak. It is hard to assess how much territory the Taliban controls now because every Afghan freedom fighter is considered Taliban by the invaders.
So when one speaks of 50% Taliban controled it probably includes many areas that are controled by the local Afghans who rely on Taliban cooperation and create a free zone too dangerous for the invaders to tarry in.
You missed the central tenet of my post: Afghanistan is too much of multi-lingual ethnic stew where the various peoples mix uncomfortably. The West lamely attempting to foist a central unified state rule from Kabul is a bad idea that Afghan history has rejected time and again. A huge source of the current problems is the Durand Line, which bisected the Pashtun homeland between the Afghan King du jour in 1839 and the British Raj. Said Afghan monarchs you blithely reference were mostly smart enough to let the various peoples; Pashtun, Tadjiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, carry on without the near-genocidal policies the Taliban carried out in places like Mazar-I-Sharif. Just because outside governments recognize a particular regime does not mean those are the facts on the ground (the USA recognizing Taiwan as China instead of People's Republic for over 20 years, for example). Recognizing that Afghans identify themselves first with their tribe and people way before they mention "Afghan" is simply the way it is. How this falls into the charge of "exceptionalism" is a leap of logic akin to what passed for judgment during the Bush error.
Your trying to make a distinction between the USA and Afghanistan as to quality of nation statehood is bogus they are both equally viable nation states. This reality does not in any way support any USA policies regarding nation building etc.
Where you get this multiligual stew(I guess Swizerland is not a nation state) where various people mix uncomfortably is unknown to me.
Having spent six months in Afghanistan traveling through most of the country prewars, I know that my small Pashto vocabulary served me through out the country and the people mixed very easily.
I am not discussing anything except your contention that Afghanistan is not as viable or genuine nation state as is the USA, if this is in fact not your contention then there is no point of contention betwix us.
Also if you traveled in the region it is readily apparent that India and Pakistan are much more diverse in Language, Religion, Race, Culture, Ethnicity, and even Geography than a relatively homogenous Afghanistan.
Afghanistan Has been a nation state recognized without any hesitation or reservations by all the nations of the world for twice as long as India and Pakistan have been.
No one ever questioned Afghanistan viabilty or validity as a nation state until the USA attacked it and starting spewing the classic imperial propaganda of the inferior, ungovernable Tribal peoples.
A confederation of Tribes into a nation state as is Afghanistan in my opinion is much perferable than a corporate facist state.
Obviously you are oblivious to the uneasiness between races in the more diverse USA.
The Native Americans are a tad bit resentful of their genocidal thieving suppressors.
And the African American is slighly apprehensive of the people who kidnapped, enslaved, beat, raped, lynched and continually oppressed their people.
And finally to complete the picture of the happy smilely faced USA family in broad strokes, the Hispanics are wondering why these morons are raving about them trying to work in a nation that is made up of almost one third territory that was stolen from them( which they stole from their indigenous, although many Mexicans are very much indigenous).
So finally when anyone questions the validity or viabilty of Afghanistan as a nation state they are regurgitating post USA invasion propaganda.
P.S. the Durand Line Treaty expired in 1993 and legally the Pakistani half of Pastunstan should have reverted back to Afghanistan.
Good analysis.
--"No one ever questioned Afghanistan viabilty or validity as a nation state until the USA attacked it and starting spewing the classic imperial propaganda of the inferior, ungovernable Tribal peoples."
This is absolutely right and the Americans of course cannot help themselves (like the Brits before them). Imperialist thought runs continuous. Criminalize the victims .. it makes it easier to commit horrendous crimes against them. Its exactly what the British did in India for the better part of 3 centuries.
If Ombama withdraws he has my vote no matter what else. If he stays he will never have my vote.