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Leaving Afghanistan
It’s beyond satire. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, telling the New York Times what he had learned during his long tenure under Presidents Bush and Obama, explained that “I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice.” Gosh, Bob, does that mean you wouldn’t invade Iraq next time?
Barack Obama and US Gen. David Petraeus in 2010 visit to AfghanistanAfghanistan, by contrast, was a “war of necessity” in Gates’s terms: official Washington believed that further bad things like 9/11 might happen to the United States if US troops didn’t go to Afghanistan to root out the al-Qaida terrorists (mostly Arabs) who had been given bases there by the country’s Taliban leadership. It wasn’t a very subtle strategy, but it was certainly driven by perceived US national interest.
Which was the point being made by President Hamid Karzai, the man whom the United States put in power after the 2001 invasion: “[The Americans] are here for their own purposes, for their own goals, and they’re using our soil for that.”
Well, of course. The only other possible explanation for their presence would be that Washington had sent half a million young Americans to Afghanistan over the past ten years in some quixotic quest to raise the Afghan standard of living and the status of Afghan women. That’s ridiculous. Obviously, the motive was perceived US national interest.
So how to explain the furiously emotional response of Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan? Speaking at Herat University, he raged: “When Americans...hear themselves described as occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest...they are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here.”
“Mothers and fathers of fallen soldiers, spouses of soldiers who have lost arms and legs – they ask themselves about the meaning of their loved one’s sacrifice. When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look these mourning parents, spouses and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply.”
Karl, they won’t be very comforted if you tell them that their loved ones died for Afghanistan. Tell them that they died defending America. Except, of course, that it may not have been a very useful way of defending America.
All the al-Qaeda camps were quickly smashed after 9/11, and by the end of 2001 Osama bin Laden had escaped across the border into Pakistan, where he remained until his death last month. Most of the surviving al-Qaeda cadres also fled to Pakistan, and US intelligence says that there are only a couple of hundred left in Afghanistan.
So why have American troops been in Afghanistan for almost ten years? To keep the Taliban from power, they say, but it’s unlikely that the Taliban leadership ever knew about al-Qaeda’s plans for 9/11. Why would they support an action that was bound to provoke a US invasion and drive them from power? Why would bin Laden risk letting them know about the attack in advance? The US has probably been barking up the wrong tree for a long time.
Now the Taliban are back in force, and the war is all but lost. The US may think it is about “terrorism” and al-Qaeda, but for Afghans it is just a continuation of the civil war that had already been raging for almost a decade before the US invasion. The Taliban, almost entirely drawn from the Pashtun ethnic group, captured Kabul in 1996, but they never managed to conquer the other, smaller ethnic groups in northern Afghanistan.
The United States stumbled into this civil war under the delusion that it was fighting Islamist terrorists, but in fact it has simply ended up on the side of the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. That’s who mans the “Afghan National Army” that the Western powers have been trying to build up with so little success: only three percent of its soldiers are Pashtuns, although Pashtuns account for 42 percent of the population.
So long as the US forces remain, the Taliban can plausibly claim that they are fighting a jihad against the infidels, but once the Americans leave the war will probably return to its basic ethnic character. That means that the Pashtuns are just as unlikely to conquer the north after the US departure as they were before the invasion.
In the end, some deal that shares out the spoils among the various ethnic groups will be done: that is the Afghan political style. The Taliban will get a big share, but they won’t sweep the board. The American interlude will gradually fade from Afghan consciousness, and the Afghan experience will vanish from American memory a good deal faster.
But in the meantime, President Barack Obama has promised to start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan next month, and that will be very tricky. Few Americans know much about Afghan realities, and they have been fed a steady diet of patriotic misinformation about the place for a decade.
If the US ambassador to Kabul can get so emotional about a plain statement of fact, imagine how the folks at home will respond when US troops leave Afghanistan without a “victory”. Obama will be lucky to pull this off without a serious backlash.
12 Comments so far
Show All[ Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan? Speaking at Herat University, he raged: “When Americans...hear themselves described as occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest...they are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here.”]
Well, Karl, if you don't want to be described as occupiers, perhaps it would be an idea not to send your nations soldiers out to occupy so many countries. 714 bases around the world. How long has the cold war been over now? When was the last time a USN ship actually coaled at Guantanamo Bay?
Afghanistan is, as of March, 2010, the greatest illicit opium producer in the entire world.
Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001.
there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007) than in any one year during Taliban rule.
In 2007, 92% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.
This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion. (According to the U.N., the drug trade is now worth $65 billion.)
In addition to opiates, Afghanistan is also the largest producer of hashish in the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan
Afghanistan: Troops Guarding the Poppy Fields
http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/afghanistan-troops-guarding-the-poppy-fields/
Germany knows where the good sh8t is. While everyone else is in Libya they helped out in Afghanistan.
Gates says we shouldn"t even begin to leave till after winter - what is that after harvest season? Farmer Gates?
Gwynne Dyer.
Gwynne, have you been to Afghanistan yet? Maybe? Just once?
Gwynne you said this,” So why have American troops been in Afghanistan for almost ten years? To keep the Taliban from power, they say, but it’s unlikely that the Taliban leadership ever knew about al-Qaeda’s plans for 9/11..”
But the Taliban say this The BBC's Pashto service has interviewed Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The following is the transcript of the interview
What do you think of the current situation in Afghanistan?
You (the BBC) and American puppet radios have created concern. But the current situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause - that is the destruction of America.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1657368.stm read it in full here
Mr. Dyer, you sir are a either a liar or a fraud,
I read that interview twice and it has no relevance to what you quoted. If anything, it makes it more probable. No idea if it's true but your link certainly doesn't refute the author. On the other hand, if you actually feel threatened by this person, you're just mad. Crazy fucking batshit insane. More so than the mullah possibly.
maybe u sdnt be so quick to assume that this actually was an interview with mullah O. he is more secretive and invisible than the wizard of oz. there have been many reports on his whereabouts and they have all been denied. he has also been reported to be dead. also, there is a question of whether he speaks for the 'taliban'. i went to the 'official' taliban website and i dont believe he was even mentioned there. then, there seems to be some fierce division between the afghan tali and the pak tali. [and downright violent animosity between the pak pashtuns and the afghan pashtuns. tali seems to be a pashtun thing.] mullah O's reported statements seem to be more in line with the pak tali/alQ-but it has also been said that he has split with them. maybe the afghan tali are actually multiple groups with more local affiliations and dont even cooperate that much. but there seems to be a major dif tween the pak and the afgh tali, with the af tali not being nearly as anti-american as the pak tali, according to the 'official' tali website, they want foreign military out, but describe americans as "decent ppl", which sounds quite different from what mullah O said in this possibly fake interview.
also some of the quotes from this interview have been reported verbatim form an interview reported in 2001.
the usa seems barely to know who represents the tali. there may be multiple groups/leaders and they are probably not all be loyal to mullahO. recently the usa thot they were negotiating with a tali leader and he turned out to be some shopkeeper from quetta who was just pulling their leg and picking their pockets.
u've got to be really skeptical abt anything u read in the news, esp about the tali or mullahO.
On Fox Noise Gates made the case for imperialistic militarism as he argued domestic programs like Medicare, Medicaid, education funding and food stamps should be gutted in order to address the deficit...annual defense spending (corporate warfare) shouldn’t be the main target. “I worry that people whose primary worry and concern is the economy and the deficit will see defense and our engagement around the world as a way to reduce those obligations and that deficit,” Mr. Gates said.
Gates couldn't be more wrong...seems like he's auditioning for a job (a payoff) with Boeing or Northrup. We can vastly reduce spending on war and weapons, we live in a peaceful neighborhood...Canada and Mexico aren't going to invade.
The Pentagon, Gates, the U.S. Military and the general replacing Petraeus need to wake up to the fact that however 'noble' and 'necessary' the may think keeping 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan is, that the presence of foreign, occupying soldiers (which is what our soldiers are to the Afghan people) with marching through villages, arresting people and bombing which often kills civilians is always unpopular...has our military and our elected leaders learned nothing from our nation's history, its founding when the British Imperial, occupying army was deeply resented and expelled???
We have two types of people in Amerika -- living, mortal people who fight and die in wars, and immortal corporate people who profit with every bullet and bomb blown into living, mortal Muslim flesh. Only living mortal persons need Medicare, Medicaid, education, clean water, etc. Immortal corporate persons have no need for it and war makes them grow larger and stronger. Like the immortal Greek gods of the Iliad, immortal corporate persons have no morality or conscience.
The immortal corporations will never end their wars on their own volition. Only when we mortals stand up to our gods of wealth and power will we end wars.
There's a good scene in the movie "Reds" when reporter John Reed (played by Warren Beatty) is at a political meeting and he is a member of a panel on the stage. Someone asks him what is the reason for World War l. He stands up looks at the crowd, and says "profits" and then sits down. Smedley Butler, two time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and Marine General echoed that answer when he wrote a book in the 1930s entitiled "War is a Racket". In that book he described his career as partly being a "bagman for Wall Street". Of course, a piece of neo-con shit like Robert Gates could never be that honest. He does want to end on the lucrative boards of "defense" contractors and their ilk. That is his payoff for all the inside work he did for them while supposedly defending our country. Instead, he helped to bankrupt it, morally and economically.
Maritimus49
Very well said. A book which serves as a fine successor to Butler's book is War Is A Lie by David Swanson.
The generals love WAR! WAR for its own sake. Screw the reasons or the objectives! They are all evil bastards. They only care about glory, promotions--gotta get those 4 stars--and don't give a shit about the young men who die or have there limbs, testicles and other body parts decimated. The rank and file are just cannon fodder as they have always been. "Bleed em white!" That is the mantra!
A class of greedy, selfish, hubristic monsters.
Gwynn - perhaps you are right that "The American interlude will gradually fade from Afghan consciousness" but this does not mean that this brutish intervention of over 10 years with many thousands of Afghan deaths will not leave deep scars and hatred in the Afghan psyche towards any North American, British or European person or their governments. Afghanistan is another cup of blood in the runoff barrel from global US interventionism and eventually in one way or another the United States will pay the price. People really don't have that short a memory, Gwynn (though for the sake of our consciences we wish they had). My 83 year old Dutch mother in law who went through the Nazi occupation of Holland has not yet forgotton her family's suffering at the hands of the German army. And Germans are still persona non grata for her.