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America's 'Surge' May Only Expand, Intensify and Prolong the Afghan Conflict
NEW YORK -- There were no surprises in President Barack Obama's historic speech at West Point last Tuesday.
Obama faced the choice between guns (Afghanistan) or butter (his national health plan). The Nobel Peace Prize winner chose guns.
As expected, Obama will rush 30,000 new troops into the Afghan quagmire and arm-twist reluctant allies to contribute more token forces. Confusingly, Obama promised some of the 100,000 U.S. garrison will begin withdrawing in 2011.
The president insisted his objective remains destroying al-Qaida. But al-Qaida barely exists in Afghanistan. Only a handful remain in Pakistan. His real target may be Pakistan.
Obama's plan mirrors the Bush administration's Iraq "surge" that candidate Obama sharply criticized. The Soviets also tried the same surge tactic during their Afghan occupation.
Tragically, the "anti-war president" missed another major opportunity to end the Afghan War through negotiations.
Anyone who understands Afghanistan's deep complexities knows that Obama's surge won't win the eight-year war. Afghanistan's Pashtun tribal majority will continue to resist western occupation.
The additional U.S. troops will be used to protect the main cities and roads connecting them -- again, mirroring Soviet strategy in the 1980s. U.S. Marines will crush rebellious Kandahar the way Iraq's Fallujah was laid waste.
At best, it will be an exercise in managing failure.
Americans are turning against the war. Congress is fretting over its mounting costs: $300 billion US for 2009 in a $1.4-trillion deficit year. This war is being waged on borrowed money. Democrats are rightly calling for a special war tax on all Americans rather than continuing to hide the war's huge expenses on the national credit card. Canada should do the same.
It costs $1 million US to keep each American soldier in Afghanistan. Renting Pakistan's assistance will cost $3 billion per year. Thousands of U.S. troops will remain stuck in Iraq. Obama vowed to fight al-Qaida in Africa and Asia. No wonder many angry Democrats are calling him "George Bush's third term."
The most positive interpretation of Obama's "surge" is that it is a face-saving exercise to cover America's retreat from the Afghan morass. An Afghan army will be cobbled together (the Soviets did the same), the Karzai government will be somehow sanitized and victory will be declared in 2011. This will hopefully allow substantial U.S. troop reductions before the next mid-term and presidential elections - if all goes well.
But things are not going well in Pakistan, without whose co-operation, bases and supply routes the U.S. cannot wage war in Afghanistan. The U.S.-backed Pakistani government of Asif Ali Zardari is awash with corruption charges, condemned as a puppet regime and may soon be ousted by Pakistan's military.
Most Pakistanis support the Taliban, see the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan as driven by lust for oil and increasingly fear the U.S. intends to tear their unstable nation apart in order to seize its nuclear arsenal.
Obama's advisers have convinced him an early U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will provoke chaos in Pakistan. They don't understand that it is the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that is destabilizing Pakistan and creating ever more anti-western extremism.
What Obama should really have been concerned about was Osama bin Laden's vow to break America's domination of the Muslim world by luring it into a final battle in Pakistan, a nation of 175 million.
The longer U.S. forces wage war in Afghanistan, the more the conflict will spread into Pakistan, where 15% of its people and 25% of its military are Pashtuns who sympathize with their beleaguered fellow Taliban Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
A grimmer view is that Obama has become a captive of the military-industrial complex, Wall Street and Washington's rabid neocons who seek permanent war against the Muslim world. Obama's "surge" may only expand, intensify and prolong the Afghan conflict.
In the end, there will be a negotiated peace that includes Taliban. But how many Americans, allies and Afghans must die before it comes?
27 Comments so far
Show AllSimple: O = W
Simple: W = O
And the beat goes on and on and on.....
If the author changes the "may" to "will" in the title of the article, it will be more accurate.
The Ir-Af-Pak occupation will be eternal to assure the US military industrial media complex (MIMC)an eternal revenue stream. When the Viet Nam occupation ended, the MIMC revenue stream diminished. They won't let that happen again.
Military Industrial Media Complex
Yes, exactly.
Thank you, Ray
Of course there are many reasons for Obama's choice of escalation, including the TAPI, the opium trade's potential profits for various well-connected entities, the hegemon's desire to dominate Central Asia, feeding the MIC and the associated private contractors, promoting harmony within his circle of warmongering fiends in an out of the cabinet, keeping the corporate media happy, and addressing other political concerns such as avoiding the label of "wimp" the far right.
However, it is my pet theory that there is another important reason for the escalation which does not seem to get much mention. Setting aside this extra $100 billion a year as set in stone and unassailable will mean the budget woes will soon become even more frightening and threatening thus "necessitating drastic action." Just as only Nixon could go to China, Obama's masters on Wall Street and elsewhere suspect that probably only a Democrat like Obama can gut Social Security and Medicare. Since it appears unlikely that Obama will win a second term, it is imperative for Obama to do this dirty deed within the next three years and so all must be done to create a budget crisis in that time. The insanely expensive and wasteful monstrous deed of escalation in Afghanistan helps significantly towards that end.
You could be right. He is pressing ahead with all their agenda's items in spite of the American peoples wishes.
Sioux Rose
KIVALS: As usual, a nuanced and thoughtful analysis. I find myself probing the moral implications as always. How is it possible for our nation to produce so many sociopaths, persons devoid of the slightest FEELING for those on the receiving end of the weapons that inevitably accompany the movements of our soldiers through foreign territories? Does the apparatus work like that purported to exist inside serial killers? That once they satsify their first kill, the hunger to repeat that sensation recurs?
I just cannot wrap my mind around how it's even POSSIBLE for U.S. leaders to continue on the course of utter calamity after possibly murdering over one million persons in Iraq, leaving a genetically broken legacy behind for new or about to become new mothers, and rendering millions homeless. Was this just to beef up the the profits of war contractors and a few other insiders? If so, the need for penalties against war profiteers is screaming out. If Nader runs for the senate, he could propose such a bill.
If you are correct that the "Entitlement programs" will be cut, perhaps more sedentary types will connect the dots between insane investments in the killing of others and losses to their own access to necessary services.
A sci-fi writer could not come up with a more deadly and diabolical set of policies than what is playing live and in bloody color these days, sponsored by the land where Hollywood meets big pharma and Mars rules.
Sooo, the powers that be want to breakup and divide these United States into separate kingdoms???
Right. This goes in tandem with health care reform. The health care "reform" that really is a bailout to the insurance industry, never was supposed to help the people who really need it. After all, any money that would go to meaningful reform has long been spent on eternal war, the major export of the US.
Absolutely! Glad someone said it. And Clinton was necessary to kill Welfare and disipline Yugoslavia (for not allowing themselves to be sacked/managed by the Anglo-American bankers).
Hello Rudy,
Since you mention Yugoslavia, here's a small fact which almost no one knows. In 1991 the American foreign aid bill stipulated that Yugoslavia could receive no aid or international loans (over which the US has veto power in the IMF & World Bank), but that the 8 individual republics of Yugoslavia COULD receive aid separately if they declared their independence. In other words, the US (under Bush I and Clinton), with the help of Christian Democratic Germany, was forcefully prying Yugoslavia apart, resulting in all the carnage that was to come.
The economic meaning of this dismemberment became apparent later on. In Yugoslavia many factories, though owned by the government, were in fact run by genuine workers' self management. When Croatia, which was a US ally against Serbia, wanted to sell enterprises to the workers' collectives which had been running them, the US and the European Union sued successfully in the World Trade court to prevent the transfer of industries to the workers. These internal transfers, they maintained, violated WTO principles that sales had to be open to the highest bidder internationally.
The US, EU and Japan also successfully sued Indonesia to force international bidding on it's automobile industry.
Conclusion? The Cold War is not over. It just has a new name: "Globalization."
Wow! Common Dreams has yet another article that manages to stagger through the familiar Is-This-What-we-Voted-For formula without mentioning the TAPI pipeline! Like it all happened because of... oh, personality flaws. Or rigid mind sets. Wars happen for money. Caspian Basin oil and gas access must avoid passing through Iran or Russia. Unocal (Karzai's former employer... they're not even subtle) has been trying to get access and Bush/Cheney threatened Afghanistan over it before 9/11. Obama has not "become a captive" of anyone. He was understood to be on the team or the media/Banks/MIC/Energy Co.s would never have engineered his election. But unless posturing and screaming betrayal brings you emotional release, DO something. Does your state have IR Voting to give third parties a chance? Call your state reps and demand it! Or, next election, run for state office to institute it. I don't think people understand how far this crap has gone...PS: Wages, jobs, industrial potential, health care access, INTERNET speeds all are headed in the direction of the 3rd World. But we're actually becoming the 2nd world, the old Soviet Union, a sclerotic, failed state w/a huge, ineffective, expensive military, ruled by a visionless elite. (the cliche is true, you become the enemy you fear) But we don't even have the Bolshoi!
rudyspeaks,
You are absolutely right about the pipeline. It is the driving force behind USAcorp's policy and at the same time completely invisible to almost everyone. It is amusing that so many observers are scratching their heads and wondering why Obama would send an entire army to round up 100 "terrorists".
Yeah, I would expect TAPI to be off of the radar screen for the whore MSM, but not CD!
Not just his military advisors but most of Washington punditry has the same analysis. "We have to do something and hitting them in Afghanistan will weaken them in Pakistan." Think of the logic behind that assumption. It assumes a conventional kind of national warfare where there are a fixed number of divisions that can be deployed or diverted according to HQ plans. No wonder the cadets at West Point were silent. Everyone of them has had a course in insurgency and guerilla war. They know bull shit when they hear it:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
I'll bet these men have read Tennyson--I assume our president has too, but he hasn't taken it to heart.
Like Bush, like Obama. Pre election rhetoric brought new hope for more enlightened leadership. Looks like this prez has heeded the call of the industrial complex and once again ignored the sage advice of the decorated General Smedley Butler who rightfully claimed that War is a Racket. What was once hope for the future has become another dark cloud as Obama has entered the zone of the Bush brotherhood. U.S. military bases in 120 countries and counting, a billion dollar embassay in Baghdad, another to be cosstructed in Afghanistan and over 47 million of his own people without health care. And you wonder why people are cynical.
the empire's debt is staggering, now nearly 12 trilion dollars. it fights on, though, borrowing money from china so it can finance a huge military that now protects chinese copper mines in afghanistan. we are the praetorian guards for the world's capitalist economy. what we do best is fight. china, meanwhile, is transforming its tremendous economic power into diplomatic leverage and is making deals with resource rich third world countries to assure a steady stream of raw materials for its immense and still burgeoning manufacturing economy. the chinese don't have to do it at the point of a gun, and because they relate to these countries as equals, they are getting their way without having the burden of a 750 billion dollar defense bill every year. now, which path, ours or china's, do you really think will be the more enduring for the future? given the trajectories, where will we be in 2050? and china?
If you are not with you are against? No No No!!!
China is not against the USA. Wealth is for all in the Chinese understanding. See the statues of Omitafo (Happy Buddha). The USA is seen as a vastly dangerous, overgrown child in the understandings of Chinese culture.
The enemies of the USA are enjoying the show.
Yes, but despite the bombast of the controlling idiots in America, like al-Qa'ida the enemies are extraordinarily thin on the ground out here. The vast number of the rest of us are squirming with acute embarrassment. The USA is like a man freshly retrieved from a pit-toilet perfectly at home pushing his way through a crowded concourse.
Call the concourse the UN, see that the great unwashed USA despises all others, even believes itself superior and it becomes perfectly clear that the crudely obtuse USA must be advised to wash, provided with the facilities and mentors and thrown out until it obeys.
It even refuses to pay.
America's 'Surge' May Only Expand, Intensify and Prolong the Afghan Conflict.
That is the whole grand idea!
The planners are not stupid hicks having a beer.
They know all the tricks and need no future seer
To expand the American Machine of War
Till every Brown nation bows before
Taking every tax dollar spent and more.
Until the means and ends of death,
By missile, drone, mine or soldier stealth,
Brings perfect and unchallanged elite power and wealth.
While those who still survive live at poverty stations,
Which is a perfect way to cut their carbon emissions,
Especially as Americans lose all jobs, homes and petitions.
Its these grandiose dreams that fuel the ambition.
Of the Afghan war lord or the Pentagon clinician,
From the lowest drug cartel to the highest compromised politician.
Them in absolute power and glory,
To challenge or even become god in their story.
And all the rest lying still in deaths blood gory.
That is the meaning of evolution at work.
Survival of the fittest, or those with the lucky quirk.
That deceives the best of us, so that we do their worst.
Verse is not often as relevant as this.
The matter of the USA being a gang like the lowest Afghan warlord is particularly apt.
Nevertheless there is too much of this throwing of hands in the air. To change this absurd reality we have to define and remove the cause.
The gang is the USA. It must be removed and the people who must do this are Americans.
Its cause is its culture of exceptionalism. If we burrow into that we can see that the Christian religion is at the centre. The USA is but the chief amongst many exceptionalist nations and the word monotheist indicates that Christianity is one of the major three problem cultures.
To put it another way, imagine the world from afar, with every feature clearly visible and it is immediately apparent that the culture referred to is of those determined they and none other are The God of all. The absurd word terrorist, meaning other, is self-reflexively born in this milieu and the problem children are easily spotted from afar because of the clouds of war and death they trail.
And no, this is not true of all cultures and peoples.
Sorry about that. Truly.
Surely a tripple AAA rating for poetic license.
“U.S. intends to… seize its nuclear arsenal.”
But why? For the CIA installed a puppet government in
Pakistan over 50 years ago, did it then with dollars,
has since then kept both government and military totally
corrupt with dollars and money is always the lubricant that
gets things done when Empire USA is the power in control.
Confusingly, Obama promised some of the 100,000 U.S. garrison will begin withdrawing in 2011.
Translation:
"Some" need not even be plural.
2011 is a great year for a "start." If the D's win, mission accomplished. If the R's win, the D's can claim they were getting out.
We should see pattern in this by now. The Insurance Augmentation Bill is planned to spring shut on citizens in 2013 - just long enough for the D's to cash their checks.
..
Of course the surge will expand and intensify the conflict: that is part of what a surge is.
Prolong?
Well, we won't know afterwards, even assuming that those of us alive today even live to see an afterwards (if that seems extreme, think about the Philippines, Korea, Honduras, Haiti, Germany, Okinawa, and so forth).
The US intends to occupy Afghanistan at least until the oil and gas of the region ceases to be a major factor in world affairs.
..
The reason for all the prevarication is that the policy is unpopular.
This is quite simple. 0bama's sponsors have a policy. It is unpopular and will become more so as the gap between rich and poor continues to grow.
They pay 0bama to convince people that they are worthy of support, cooperation, or tolerance.
'In the end, there will be a negotiated peace that includes Taliban. But how many Americans, allies and Afghans must die before it comes?'
Sorry, but the end will be victory for the USA and a group of puppets purported to be Taliban in 'power'. Victory means the total destruction of Afghanistan, its culture and its people. The US army and their media can manufacture it and the little boys at the head of the USA have decided nothing else will do.
Trying for big dicks they are.
But this talk is cheap: take the government of the USA down. That is the war. It is the responsibility of Americans.
The Obama admin. doesn't only plan on a U.S. troop surge; trying to coerce as many allies and unwilling allies in this war to also send more forces.
"The Great Game: U.S., NATO War In Afghanistan
Fifty or more countries in a single war theater"
by Rick Rozoff, Stop Nato, rickRozoff.wordpress.com, Dec 5 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16422
--"What Obama should really have been concerned about was Osama bin Laden's vow to break America's domination of the Muslim world by luring it into a final battle in Pakistan, a nation of 175 million."
As always Margolis manages to deflect blame away from his most favored constituency - The Pakistani Military and ISI - who embedded him into their hearty embrace in Reagans Cold War.
By blaming the U.S. without so much as mentioning the Pakistani Army and ISI transgressions, against Pakistan and Afghanistan, Margolis does an immense disservice to the people of both those beleaguered countries. Margolis' questionable motives are in stark display.
He is correct in that this entire surge is essentially 'an exercise in managing failure'.