Participate in a Real "December Review" of the War in Afghanistan

On
November 25, 2010, the occupation of Afghanistan by United States and
NATO forces had already lasted 9 years and 50 days. This date is a
significant milestone, Jason Ditz of antiwar.com points out, because 9 years and 50 days is also how long the Soviet occupation of that country lasted. "That
is how long the Soviet Union tried, and failed, to successfully occupy
Afghanistan and install a pro-Soviet regime," notes Ditz. "From their
late 1979 invasion to their withdrawal in early 1989, Soviet troops
struggled against an Islamist insurgency that eventually toppled the
pro-Soviet Najibullah government and sent the Soviet Union itself
spiraling into the depths of bankruptcy."

In an interview in the Paris magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur,
15-21 January 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's
National Security Adviser, boasted of the role that the United States
and Brzezinski himself played in "drawing the Russians into the Afghan
trap." The "official version of history," that the United States came to
the aid of Afghan rebels in 1980, in response to the Soviet invasion is
not true, he said. "The reality, secretly guarded until now, is
completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter
signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the
pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was
going to induce a Soviet military intervention.... The day that the
Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We
now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed,
for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the
government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally
the breakup of the Soviet empire."

Their
"Vietnam War" that was deliberately inflicted on the Soviet Union
caused civil dissent and economic chaos that the Soviet Union, unlike
the United States with its Vietnam War, did not survive. However painful
and destructive the real Vietnam War was to the United States, though,
its primary victims were the people of Vietnam. Just so, the primary
victims of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan were not the Soviets but
the Afghans. By inducing the Soviets to invade Afghanistan in 1979, the
United States was also giving the people of Afghanistan its "Vietnam
War" and it repeated this crime by invading Afghanistan itself a little more than 9 years and 50 days ago.

Unlike
the present occupiers of Afghanistan who say that they can actually
win where the Soviets failed, Jason Ditz observes, by the time the
Soviet occupation had lasted as long as ours "the writing had been on
the walls for many months." The Gorbachev government had already been
withdrawing troops. There was broad acceptance in Soviet society that
the war had been an economic and moral disaster long before their last
troops left Afghanistan on February 15, 1989. At this point when the
Soviets were cutting their losses, the United States is ramping up its
doomed efforts and in classic Orwellian doublethink, declares both that
it is winning the war and that it will last at least another 4 years and
maybe forever!

Even
while sharing a common border with Afghanistan, the USSR could not
economically sustain their war there and it is this drain of resources
that is credited with bringing down their empire. American economists
and politicians of both parties pretend that they can speak about the
economic perils our country faces while the cost of our wars. To divert
economic disaster, sacrifices need be made, all agree, but these
sacrifices will come in cuts to schools, hospitals, roads,
transportation -- the entire civil structure of society, it seems, will be
gutted to keep paying for this war. A blind eye to historical lessons,
optimism and exceptionalism -- these quintessential U.S. traits are
dangerously evident as the Obama administration and the U.S. public in
general overlooks an ominous milestone.

The
Obama administration will soon be making public its "December Review,"
assessing the situation in Afghanistan. This assessment will not,
apparently, confuse the issue with facts. "We have a policy in place,"
said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for
communications, to reporters on Air Force One on the occasion of the
president's December 3 visit there, and the review is not meant to lead
to major shifts in that policy. "This is a process which is diagnostic
in nature," Rhodes explains. It is interesting language coming from the
White House. What can we make of a "diagnostic" procedure, to expand on
the analogy, which is not intended to inform or effect a predetermined
treatment? Doesn't this constitute malpractice?

A
"December Review" at this time, a month after our occupation of
Afghanistan has exceeded the Soviet's is a good idea. Yet the review the
Obama administration mandated has been rendered meaningless before it
has even been published. It does not deserve much
consideration. This December, however, is an auspicious time for all
Americans to carefully review and assess the impact of the war at home
and abroad and to demand real changes in policy. It is also long past
time that Americans listen to the people of Afghanistan. On December 19,
the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, based in Bamiyan, are calling for a "Global Day of Listening to Afghans." This might be the true December Review that we need.

To find out more see https://vcnv.org/global-day-of-listening-to-afghans