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Be Under No Illusion, NATO is in No Shape to Make Progress in this Graveyard of Empires
If Iraq was bad, Afghanistan is going to be worse. Nothing said or done at the Lisbon conference, which is largely an exercise in self-deception, is going to make this better and it may well make it worse.
It is not just that the war is going badly, but that NATO's need to show progress has produced a number of counter-productive quick fixes likely to deepen the violence. These dangerous initiatives include setting up local militias to fight the Taliban where government forces are weak. These are often guns-for-hire provided by local warlords who prey on ordinary Afghans.
The US military has been making much of its strategy of assassinating mid-level Taliban commanders, but one study on the ground showed that many of these are men highly regarded in their communities. It concluded that killing them infuriated local people and led to many of them being recruited by the Taliban.
The US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, will tell NATO leaders today of his plan to start handing over responsibility for security in some areas to the Afghan government in 2011. This sounds like wishful thinking on the part of General Petraeus and his selection of target dates is primarily to avoid accusations that NATO has no idea when or how it will get out.
The Taliban currently controls or has influence in half of Afghanistan. While US reinforcements have been pouring into Helmand and Kandahar provinces, the Taliban have been expanding their enclaves in the north.
The whole idea of handing over security to the Afghan government is based on a rapid expansion of the Afghan army to 171,000 men and the police to 134,000. Not only are these new recruits likely to be poorly trained, but they will be drawn from the largely anti-Taliban Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities. The Pashtun, 42 per cent of Afghans and the community from which the Taliban is largely drawn, will feel ever more victimized.
The differences between the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan underline that the latter is more dangerous for foreign occupiers. In Iraq the anti-US guerrillas sprang from Sunni Arabs, a community to which less than one in five Iraqis belonged. The post-Saddam government in Baghdad was supported by the Kurds and the Shia, making up four-fifths of the population. Afghans are more xenophobic than Iraqis. "Suspicion of foreigners is part of every Afghan's DNA," said a Western diplomat in Kabul.
The NATO leaders in Lisbon may want to consider two other respects in which Afghanistan may prove a more dangerous country. The Afghan government is much feebler than its equivalent in Baghdad where there is a tradition of central control and $60bn in oil revenues. Militarily, what defeated the Soviet army in Afghanistan was not the warlike prowess of the Afghans but the 2,500km long border with Pakistan. So long as this remains open, and the insurgents have safe havens in Pakistan, NATO and the Afghan government are not going to win.
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35 Comments so far
Show AllPatriotic Afghans and people who care about self-determination will make sure the mercenary thugs of the U.S. pay a heavy price for continuing this madness.
Raise a cup to those who fight to keep their lands free of brutal foreign occupiers.
Godistwaddle
Very well said. During World War II those who fought against their oppressors were called freedom fighters. The same appellation should also be given to the Afghans and the Iraqis and the Palestinians as they should certainly be considered freedom fighters who are also fighting back against their oppressors.
I'll drink to that.
SKOL!
If the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not bear the strain.
- Sun Tzu, on the art of war
I am afraid that Mr. Cockburn misses the true role of NATO as it is emerging in the world today by focusing exclusively on Afghanistan where NATO cum US may indeed suffer a failure. The arrangement of the big powers today is, in a nutshell, the following. The United Nations has been reduced to a forum where every member state can spout its propaganda or bitch in the Security Council but the UN is no longer of interest to the imperialist rulers of our country because it does not have a standing army. Since President Obama was inaugurated it has become increasingly clear that our country cannot go it alone militarily in the world and must therefore seek the help of allies, preferably armed allies. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that military support of individual states such as Britain or France are hugely unreliable (the "alliances of the quitting"). A military alliance directed no longer at the Soviet Union but at China and Russia of our country and supranational NATO is therefore logical because the rulers of NATO are equally fearful of China and Russia (Turkey may well be an exception) as our rulers are regardless of whether the fear is justified or not. In this context Afghanistan is merely a side-show, albeit a bloody one.
The Achilles heel of this setup is financing. If NATO countries continue to balk on steeply increased military spending to get Obama and his successors off the money-hook the whole shebang may still unravel.
I cannot believe that the centuries-old European habit of colonialist expansionism and war-making is completely dead, especially when it comes to contemporary crusades against Muslim states/societies. Once the economies of the big NATO states begin to pick up steam again I can imagine the Germans investing in a super-modern navy whose ships will become the engineering/fighting dreams of the 21st century. The Bismark revived except that the ship will be named Konrad Adenauer!
The "joker" in this deadly poker game is Japan. What role does Obama and NATO want Japan to play?
Lastly: NATO will never give up its atomic arsenal of France and Britain plus US warheads stored in Belgium, Holland, and Germany. Is it any wonder that Europe wants an anti-atomic-missile shield paid by us and run by them?
My children and grandchildren will be living in an extremely dangerous world and that has absolutely nothing to do with the financial debt of our state but only with the insatiable, apparently incurable addiction of our rulers to imperialism.
Very well said.
Your analysis is quite interesting. But do the Germans really want to get back in the military build up for global war-trekking after they have experienced an exceptional economic renaissance without the heavy burden such a large expenditure of capital would require? Same goes for Japan. Both countries have rebuilt themselves from the ashes of WWII and their collective memory of the heavy price they paid for global hegemony is still very much alive. They still face some pretty daunting challenges ahead in support of their own internal economic well-being as a society.
As for NATO, it really is just a sidekick to American Imperialist designs to police as much of the world possible in order to procure energy resources based on fossil-fuel technologies. Without the U.S. in the equation as the super-dominant partner, NATO allies would have little choice but to pretty much pack up and go home save for a few relatively small deployments to influence regional conflicts in their favor. Remnants of European colonialism yes. Small military conflicts by proxies refereed by NATO soldiers far more likely.
Both Russia and China have similar introspective relationships in terms of global geopolitics. They seem primarily motivated to lay claim to what they consider is within the radius of "their" respective backyards. It is very unlikely that these two countries are willing to incur in massive military build ups for global conquest. Again they face enough daunting challenges in bringing up their societies to a respectable standard of living for the 21st Century.
It really seems to be that the U.S., with its delusional head trip of being the sole remaining world super power is willing to utterly ravage its own social construct in order to establish an economy subservient to its military-industrial complex and the monopoly conglomerates which feed off it. Obama's recent arms sales tour reveals that the only clear advantage the U.S. maintains is its military. Unfortunately for us and the rest of the world it seems America's leaders are all to willing to go down a path of continued military expansionism and the necessary wars to make it happen.
Your correct China has no incentive to be militarily imperialistic when it is easier, smarter, quicker, and less expensive to be monetarily imperialistic.
My "Konrad Adenauer" paragraph was written because I felt that the remainder of my posting was too damn serious and needed a bit of levity.
Of course you are right. Today the Germans are not in a war-frenzy at all. However, the NATO countries to keep watching are the ones that border on Russia. During the "Invasion of Georgia by Russia" flap Poland was the most vociferous in demanding punitive actions.
The electronic invasion of the computers of Iran's centrifuge plants demonstrates another potential worth of the NATO countries and Japan for the American Imperialists because the NATO/Japanese electronic wizards are undoubtedly as good if not better than ours.
The soviets were doing very well against the Afghans until the US gave the Afghans stinger missiles, then the tide turned. It was the US that caused the defeat of the Soviets. It was also the US that created the resistance against the soviets. At the time the government of Afghanistan was progressive and particularly good for women. The US helped to overthrow this government and install the Taliban. The US has long wanted this piece of land, its all part of the plan to control the world. (see PNAC).
The stinger hastened the defeat of the USSR but it was not the decisive factor. We now know that the soviet occupation had pretty much bankrupted what was left of its empire. One of the Talib leader was quoted as saying "we have the time and they have the watch" when referring to US occupation. The Taliban know that they will not defeat US militarily but they are keenly aware that the US (or any country for that matter) does not have limitless resources to stay on for many years. I suspect that there will be a negotiated settlement when Nato will be at much more weaker position than it is now.
I agree with that
Few people know that the Pentagon was so scared that Stinger missiles remained in Afghanistan that it purchased the remaining missiles even from the Taliban!
Yes! this shows that US hegemonic interests has destructive characteristics which comes down to bite them sooner or later. Their whole game plan is falling apart in front of us and sooner or later we'll see the 'fire from the dragons mouth' engulfing all in its path. What a tragedy!
If the Russians gave antiaircraft missiles to the Taliban, how long would the US last there? Why don't they?
//Militarily, what defeated the Soviet army in Afghanistan was not the warlike prowess of the Afghans but the 2,500km long border with Pakistan.//
there was another thing: US- or Western-made anti-aircraft, portable rockets. I know people who were deep, deep in Afghanistan at the time of that war, and they told me that the tide turned when these rockets came to the hands of the Afghan resistance.
The whole thing (what's called "the war") was just a manipulation, as we now know. A trap it was, and its victim was, beside Afghanistan itself (which served a bit like a bait) was the Soviet Union (the Kremlin gang).
Now the war is used by the Washington gang to keep its armies well-trained, and to test new weapons, and to profit from heroin which is used to kill Russians and Europeans by the tens of thousands, and also to waste tax-payers' money, because that isthe object of modern warfare, after all: To destroy the product of the system, to keep us all poor, slaves to work, to the Elite.
The Afghans' exrraordinary capacity and will to fightforever whatever invader make them theperfect tool for whoever knows how to use never ending war to their best advantage.
I appreciate your real-world application and analysis of the concept of "endless war". You make perfect sense in describing the Afghans as the perfect foil for such an endeavor. And your interpretation of the purposes of war is, if abrupt, also logical. Thanks for spelling it out so well here.
" So long as this remains open, and the insurgents have safe havens in Pakistan, NATO and the Afghan government are not going to win."
Whenever I see the word "win" applied to this conflict, my brain seizes up. What exactly will winning look like? Is it when all the Taliban are killed? When the number of casualties goes down to some "reasonable" level? When Americans can visit the country and eat at McDonald's?
The finality of "winning" is also problematic. Suppose one or more of the above definitions actually plays out. For how long do we expect this long-awaited "winning" condition will last? A year? A decade? Until the last pipeline is built? My answer is that Afghanistan will have achieved success against the Taliban when the United States can no longer afford to wage war. At that point, victory will be declared. The success of that war will linger for as long as the MSM choose to play it up. Probably that will be a very long time.
Very interesting feature...the private mercenary armies that Washington employs has made its military adventures tolerated by the public to a dramatically higher degree because nobodies kids are dying in these occupations and the folks kids who are dying are volunteers so that, coupled with contractor armies has neutered this nations anti-war movement.
The Pakistan border is the Ho-Chi Minh Trail of supplying the resistance to the US & NATO.
Aside from being all out against this PNAC scam, I don't see what alienating Pakistan by Predator incursions into its territory will do to stablize that country or put a dent in the Taliban's capacity to resist -without escalating the whole fracas into something more ugly and destabilizing for peace in the region.
I ask myself: Afghanistan, a country that is practically in the Stone Age is no threat to the United States whether terrorists train in it or not..it has no infrastructure to be a nuclear threat...just what the status is of the oil pipeline that is going to go through I am not up to date on, but ostensibly US military bases will be stationed by them...if anybody is more up to date on that aspect of this occupation, what is the latest on the oil pipline.
America is asleep
I agree with nearly all of your comment accept the Afghanistan as practically Stone Age part.
Afghans had and have a strong cultural identity and it is the American military tht is the barbarian invader.
The Afghans are quite capable of utilizing and improvizing modern military resistance techniques often adapting very simple and cheap electronics and old ordnance.
You may mean well but claims cultural superiority, or of being more civilized are part and parcel of imperialist rhetoric.
Stone age was a figure of speech, I was speaking merly comparatively in terms of infrastructure technologically. I like the music of Afghanistan and its landscapes are beautiful beyond compare and if you were paying attention I said I abhored the PNAC manifesto which embodies western imperialism
""crow;s nest
'My children and grandchildren will be living in an extremely dangerous world and that has absolutely nothing to do with the financial debt of our state but only with the insatiable, apparently incurable addiction of our rulers to imperialism.'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your children and grandchildren, but what about your (and my) grandchildren's children? Earth air, water and soil is being polluted BECAUSE people are in plague proportions, needing to be fed, crops needing to be grown to feed them they then reaching the age to reproduce (14?). Earth's resources (as we all know) are FINITE. All breathing things, from humans to trees to krill to crops are being poisoned.
Steralisation of the 'pests', the 'rabble' is the bloodless coup. A 'spray' that will stop these pests and rabble (at home and abroad) from producing more would be good (!) 'We' (gloat the powerful elite) would have a beautiful, bountiful, clean, green Earth to ourselves.
Steralisation :
"Because Agent Orange causes sterility issues and can result in damaged sperm, “There's a whole lost generation that people don't even know about,” Gotham said."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DENIED. Veteran's courts hadn't given enough 'solid proof'. !
No 'solid proof' that napalm as sprayed in vietnam over the vietnamese (and American troops) causes sterility...???
But, but, but - that means... there is :
No 'solid proof' that it does NOT.
"Dow Chemical Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The United States military used napalm in their efforts during the Vietnam War. ... Workers at Dow's DBCP production were made sterile by exposure to the compound. .... elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemical dioxin in November 2006. ... after the gas leak that killed more than 20000 people, and it continues ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Chemical_Company - Cached - Similar
~sc
Of course, as eugenics will tell (or won't) there are other ways of steralising masses of people, including foods. Not relying only on spraying...
Putting 'contrails poison' into google is worth looking at. I mean really worth looking at. Moot.
~sc
Littlenutty: I quote you: "As for NATO, it really is just a sidekick to American Imperialist designs.."
I am surprised that you buy into this picture of the unstoppable U.S. hegemon with a NATO-sidekick in tow. Today nothing could be further from the actual relationship. For the first time since the foundation of NATO our American Imperialists need NATO and not the other way around. The war in Afghanistan was for most years not known as a NATO-war which, however, it "legally" was. Today it is touted again and again as a NATO war because NATO can provide bodies (soldiers) and because a war conducted by NATO has the (false) smell of idealism: after all NATO was founded to combat the terrible Soviet Union and in Afghanistan NATO soldiers are fighting and killing the terrible Taliban insurgents.
The dependency of American Imperialists on NATO is neither total nor perfect. The commanders that count are still Americans. I will not be surprised if President Obama, who knows that the war in Afghanistan is growing increasingly unpopular at home and may become one factor in his defeat in 2012, will insist on a European Commander of all forces in Afghanistan with the replaced General Petraeus pulling the strings from behind the scene. Risky but clever because that will decrease Obama's publicly perceived responsibility for the inevitable failure.
The U.S. has over 750 military bases worldwide.
How many does NATO have? The NATO forces
currently in Afghanistan show a 2 to 1 ratio
of American troops to all other participating
countries combined. One can imagine the number
in Iraq is much more skewed in favor of American
representation. I did not say American
Imperialism is unstoppable. Although those in
its charge sure seem to believe it.
Again,
It's a moot point. Get rid of NATO. Who cares which country donates how many troops? NATO is dead. We have no common enemy anymore. If China decides to attack the West, we don't need NATO. Every country in the West will respond to that threat without NATO. If, however, the U.S., whose debt China owns, decides to absolve that debt as Bernanke is now insinuating, we would have to fend for ourselves and since the problem is ours, we should fend for ourselves.
Get rid of NATO! Bring our troops home from Germany, England, Italy, Japan, and the other 127 countries in the world. You people of Europe don't need us anymore and you are bankrupting us. Take care of yourself and spend your own money for your own defense. If we get out of Afghanistan, there is no need for NATO, and since we do not need to be in Afghanistan...la di dah.
Pashtun law and ethical codes of honor make it necessary to avenge the death of any Pashtun. This can become a score to settle that will carry on endlessly for generations.
The illegal American corporate fascist invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has killed many thousands of Pashtuns.
There are about 40 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan and they have time on their side and a very ancient warrior culture.
Amerika is already printing extra funny money to cover war costs just like bankrupt empires of the past. And foreign buyers of Amerika debt are disappearing.
Crowsnest said:
"I am surprised that you buy into this picture of the unstoppable U.S. hegemon with a NATO-sidekick in tow. Today nothing could be further from the actual relationship."
This is true on many levels. Nearly everyone in the world, other than ignorant Americans fed a steady diet of corporate media, know that the occupation of Afghanistan is about potential corporate profits from resource exploitation.
Afghanistan has huge reserves of copper and lithium and proven reserves of natural gas along with other natural resources. It is also the route for the trans Afghan pipeline (or pipelines) project to supply India and other countries with energy from Central Asia. This is all about private corporate profits for the 21st century.
The new great game is Pipelineistan.
The European NATO contribution in Afghanistan is a token effort at best for most of the NATO countries, although the Brits have done some real fighting, or shall we say illegal killing.
The Europeans refuse to subsidize the criminal plans of American corporations. They are not willing to have their people killed and waste national resources on endless corporate warfare ?
What are you actually saying?
NATO is the source of never-ending Halliburton contracts to destroy, rebuild, destroy, and rebuild. I cannot get over who is profiting from all of this idiocy. The profits must extend to Great Britain, the U.S., Denmark, France, and etc., all involved in Afghanistan. France learned well from its prod to require Americans to commit to Bosnia.
No one cares as much about copper and lithium as they do about those Halliburton contracts.
Natural gas in Afghanistan?
Ok, but to exploit natural gas and put it into bottles for export requires about six or seven billions of euros. Which oil company is going to commit to doing that given the current economic/political climate of Afghanistan? I know of one company that is doing that and it has taken about 10 years to arrive at some sort of agreement, and that country is much more stable than Afghanistan.
What is the status of the natural gas pipeline that is going to pass through Afghanistan?