Stop the War in Afghanistan!

Pakistan in the Afghanistan quagmire

2011-05-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

News reports during this past week indicate further strains in Pakistan-US relations. The tension is long-lived but has in recent months escalated over the increased allied interventions via special forces and predator drones into Pakistan’s territory. The US policy on Afghanistan under the Bush and Obama administrations has been to attack suspected Taliban safe havens identified by US intelligence on the Pakistan side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. The goal: to reduce the ability of the Taliban to go back and forth across the border.

Despite protests from the Pakistan government, the US military has continued to seek out and kill Taliban leaders who are believed to be in Pakistan. In the process, Pakistani civilians have been killed and the sovereignty of Pakistan has been ignored.

Herbert P. Bix reports on Znet that Obama has increased drone attacks since becoming president

“and that those attacks have killed nearly 1,500 Pakistani men, women, and children; that the rank and file of the Pakistani army regard the U.S. as "a most untrustworthy ally" -- indeed, no friend at all, and that the Pakistanis were deeply angered after several earlier incidents of American criminal conduct on their territory….Later Pakistan demanded that "about 335 American personnel -- C.I.A. officers and contractors and Special Operations forces" -- leave the country. (See http://mobile.zcommunications.org./the-assassination-of-osama-bin-laden-american-vengeance-as-justice-by-herbert-p-bix.)

Jason Ditz refers to a study released in January of this year by the Conflict Monitoring Centre which “reported that 2,043 Pakistanis have been slain in CIA drone strikes in the past five years, with the vast majority of them innocent civilians” and “over 75% of them…killed in the past two years since Obama took office.” Further, the number of such deaths continues to rise, with 700 people killed in CIA drones strikes in 2009 and 929 killed in 2010. (See: http://news/antiwar.com, January 2, 2011.)

Reporting for Los Angeles Times (5-27-11), David S. Cloud identifies examples of acts carried out in Pakistan by CIA or special forces personnel (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwide/la-fg-pakistan-20110527,0,5278643.story) . Here are two of them. Cloud writes that in January, “Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, shot dead two men in Lahore who he said were attempting to rob him. He was arrested on charges of murder but was released and left the country in mid-March, prompting violent protests in several cities.” Cloud continues: Then, on May 2, five U.S. helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace” with a team of U.S. Navy special forces.

There has been mounting anger over such interventions among Pakistan military and government leaders, and the population generally. Cloud reports on one recent response from the Pakistanis:

“The move to close the three [intelligence fusion] facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents.”

The assassination of Osbama bin Laden is yet another incident of US intervention into Pakistan, aggravating tensions already existing between Pakistan and the US. Initial reports have not yet been able to draw to a definitive and comprehensive analysis of what happened.

Of the many media reactions to the assassination, Herbert P. Bix’s article on Znet titled “The Assassination of Osama bin Laden: American Vengeance as Justice” is enlightening (5-26-11).

Bix reviews the early evidence about what is known of the assassination. He makes three general points, namely, that the assassination was illegal by all relevant international law, that President Obama was celebratory in his remarks to the American people in reaction to the report of bin Laden’s death, and that the President’s remarks serve to reinforce the self-serving American propaganda that America is a force for virtue and goodness in a world of innumerable evil-doers.

“On May 1, two American "Black Hawk" helicopters carrying twenty-three Navy SEALS and three "Chinook" helicopters with twenty-four backup soldiers aboard crossed the Afghanistan-Pakistan border undetected by Pakistani radar and without the Pakistani government's consent. A short time later they swooped down in the dark on a large, walled, three-storied compound in a residential area of the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, less than a mile from Pakistan's leading military academy.

“So began the final moments of a carefully plotted, unilateral American operation, kept secret from Pakistani government officials, to gather intelligence on al Qaeda and to kill bin Laden. The CIA had suspected that he was living in Abottabad with some of his wives and children for the past five or more years. President Obama had reviewed the goals of the plan and the means for implementing them….

“During the first stage of the raid -- lasting fifteen to twenty-minutes -- the commandos, wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras to record their actions, forced their entry into the ground floor of the building, and killed three men and one woman while collecting computers, floppy disks, thumb drives, DVDS, computers and cellphones….

“… the commandos encountered an unarmed, unresisting bin Laden, who made no attempt to shield himself from harm or to threaten them. In the circumstances, there was no military necessity to kill him. He could have been taken alive, interrogated, and eventually sent to trial where he might have stated his case and the world could have judged him, as other mass murderers have been judged. But the commandos were psychologically primed and explicitly ordered by the Obama administration to kill rather than capture, so they spurned their opportunity and illegally murdered him on the spot -- Mafia-style with two bullets to the head and chest. Then they flew his body to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, from which it was dumped into the North Arabian Sea. The swift disposal of the bin Laden corpse without providing any visual evidence or independent verification of his assassination was Obama's and the Pentagon's attempt to manage the media.

“The result was to defy the maxim that justice must be seen to be done -- a point that two of bin Laden's sons also made in a statement that decried "arbitrary killing" as ‘not a solution to political problems.’ These were the same sons who rejected their father's use of violence. The truth, unwelcome as it may be to celebratory Americans, is that bin Laden was illegally assassinated for domestic American political purposes, in violation of international law, U.S. military law, and the oath the commandos and their superiors had sworn to uphold the Constitution. Because the rule of law was systematically trampled upon, justice could neither be applied nor served.[7]

Second, from Bix’s viewpoint, President Obama misconstrues the facts and celebrates bin Laden’s killing as a great victory and affirmation of US policies and exceptionalismBix writes:

“Yet that did not prevent the U.S. president from proclaiming untruthfully that there had been ‘a firefight,’ that bin Laden's execution was ‘a testament to the greatness of our country,’ and that ‘Justice has been done.’ Nor did it deter him from saying three days later in a ‘60 Minutes’ interview that any critic of this action ‘needs to have their heads examined.’ In his speech Obama lauded the ‘heroic work of our military’ and the Special Operation death squad that carried out his order.

“...drawing on two centuries of presidential rhetoric honed in wars of continental and overseas conquest, Obama gave expression to classic American arrogance, stating, ‘America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it is the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens, our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place’ [italics added].[8] In the president's lexicon vengeance is justice and citizens should take pride in any action sanctioned by the U.S. government in the fight against foreign enemies.”

Third, the strongly militarized foreign policy of America will continue, Obama says. His poll numbers go up. Patriotism is refueled. The policy is sanctified. America is a force for good in the world against evil-doers, Obama proclaims.

Bix’ finishes his article by alluding to Obama’s patriotic statements of how the US was right in killing bin Laden and that the policy will continue because it works and because it is the morally correct path reflecting America’s exceptional role in international affairs.

“… the rightness of Obama appealed to key elements of the American credo: He told the nation that the intentions and purposes of their leaders were virtuous; he implied that the U.S. had a mission to lead the world and combat evil; and he asserted that by intervening militarily in foreign countries and eliminating arch criminals such as bin Laden peace could be restored.[9] His message resonated widely at home, causing his approval ratings in opinion polls to rise. He had shown the American people that in pursuit of his benevolent objectives he, like George W. Bush whom American voters had rewarded with a second term in office in 2004, would ignore the constitution and the laws of war that proscribe the killing of unresisting, unarmed captives.”

Reactions to assassination of bin Laden among Pakistani public, militants, and the Pakistani parliament

Bix refers to three such reactions.

#1 – Public disapproval in Pakistan against assassination. “When Gallup surveyed Pakistani opinion eight days after the assassination, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all Pakistanis disapproved of the U.S. military action and thought bin Laden ‘should have been taken alive’ or at least captured rather than killed.

#2 – Militants retaliate – “About a week later in northwest Pakistan, militants who accuse the Islamabad government and its security forces of ‘being puppets in . . . an American war against Muslims’ launched a series of three retaliatory attacks for bin Laden's killing, setting off suicide bombs that took the lives of eighty Pakistanis and injured more than a hundred-forty others; setting off bombs near oil trucks headed for U.S. forces in Afghanistan; and ‘storming [the] important [Mehran] naval base in the southern port city of Karachi.’

#3 – Pakistan’s parliament acts –“…meeting in Islamabad, [the parliament] passed a joint resolution demanding an immediate end to U.S. drone attacks and consideration by the civilian government of anti-U.S. sanctions.

David S. Cloud provides further details on how the Pakistani parliament has reacted to US interventions and the assassination of bin Laden. Cloud writes:

“In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

“The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces.”

Pakistan has other options to use in restraining US interventions into their country, options that indicate the diminution of US influence in the country.

We shouldn’t forget that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, which would lead any potential adversary to show restraint. There are two other options that Pakistan can utilize, has utilized, or is in the process of developing.

The first of these is that the US/NATO forces in Afghanistan have a limited number of routes for supplying their troops. Kate Brannen, writing for Defense News (5-18-11) considers this potential bottleneck for the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan (http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i+6544248&c=LAN&s=TOP)

According to Brannen:

“Of the supplies it delivers by land, the U.S. brings in 60 percent to Afghanistan from the north through Central Asia and the Baltic states and 40 percent from the south through Pakistan. There, supplies arrive in the port of Karachi and travel over land by contractor-driven trucks.” The US military brass are considering alternatives to the Pakistan route, but, according to Army Lt. Gen Mitchell Stevenson, “deputy chief of logistics,” “it would be a challenge.”

Brannen refers to more of the US military’s thinking on this matter as follows:

“If the southern routes were shut down, the U.S. would increase its use of airdrops and flow more in from the north. However, that route takes much longer and is more expensive, Stevenson said.

“The U.S. relies on airlift for all of its "sensitive" and "high-tech" equipment, Stevenson said. This is due to restrictions placed on the U.S. by countries along the northern route, as well as frequent attacks on supply trucks.

“To keep supplies off the roads, the U.S. also relies on a large pool of "theater-provided" equipment. The challenge there is that the equipment requires major overhaul and refurbishment about every two years. The capability to do that in Afghanistan is now available, the three-star said.”

Brannen also reports that the Army is working on a project that would channel more supplies from a “friendly country” (e.g., Bahrain).

When all is said and done, however, the US now depends on the Pakistan route and the pursuit of any alternative would be costly to the US/NATO occupation.

The second development that may reduce Pakistan’s ties to the US is that Pakistan is entering into an ever close relationship with China. Juan Cole provides an informative, up-dated, post on this development on his blog, Informed Comment (5-23-2011), the title of which is “Pakistan’s China Gambit.”

Cole’s central point is stated in the opening sentence of the post: “Pakistan’s relations with the United States are troubled, and Islamabad may be turning to China as a result.” Cole offers the following evidence for this position.

#1 – “Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani just ended a 4-day visit to Beijing, which turned into a love fest. The visit commemorated 60 years of Sino-Pakistan relations. (China has been a key Pakistan ally in the latter’s struggle with India over issues such as Kashmir).”

#2 – “Pakistan wants China to build for it a naval base at Gwadar, a deep water port now managed by Singapore, but to which Chinese engineers and Chinese capital made key contributions. (There are 10,000 Chinese working in Pakistan nowadays.) The port was 75% financed by China.”

#3 – “When the lease on the port ends, China is being asked to step in to manage it. Pakistan is offering itself to China, in other words, as Hong Kong West. If China has standing access to the new naval base for its own growing fleet of military vessels, that opening would give it a new position in the Arabian Sea near the strategic Persian Gulf, which has nearly two-thirds of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and a significant amount of natural gas, as well.”

#4 – “China will also give Pakistan 50 JF-17 Thunder fighter jets . China and Pakistan co-produce these jets, but the 50 being proffered have more sophisticated avionics than the co-produced version. China will also provide Pakistan with “J-20 stealth jets and Xiaolong/FC-1 multi-purpose light fighter aircraft”, though talks are in train about how exactly they will be paid for….Pakistan will thus have some 260 Chinese jets, and these aircraft are the core of its air force.”

#5 - On August 14, China will launch a satellite into orbit for Pakistan. The two countries are being vague about its use but it can hardly be irrelevant to Pakistan’s military competition with India.”

#6 - Two branches of China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank opened in Pakistan during Gilani’s visit to China.”

#7 – “Pakistan and China do $9 bn. a year in trade with one another each year, and Gilani wants it to rise to $15 bn by 2015. In contrast, two-way annual trade between the US and Pakistan is only $5.4 bn. a little more than half that of China-Pakistan. Likewise, US investments in Pakistan in 2010 seem only to have been 1/3 those of China.”

#8 – “Even the Muslim fundamentalist group, the Jama’at-i Islami, is urging closer ties with Communist China as a way of escaping Pakistan’s dependence on (“slavery to”) the United States.”

Implications? The US/NATO occupation of and ongoing fighting in Afghanistan has never been limited to Afghanistan alone.

It’s impossible to isolate a country in South-Central Asia for military conquest and regime-building. Afghanistan and Pakistan are connected by geography, transportation routes, and ethnic ties.

Afghanistan is important both to Pakistan and India, neither of which will be content to step aside and let the other become dominant in Afghanistan. (See Ben Arnoldy’s article on Pakistan and Afghanistan at: http://www.cmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2011/1020/How-the-Afghanistan-war-became-tangled-in-India-vs.-Pakistan.rivalry).

War and military occupation spur resistance and squander resources that could be used economic reconstruction.

US foreign wars and occupations are costly in human lives, economically, environmentally, for all involved. Insofar as the US is concerned, wars and occupations divert scarce resources away from critical human, economic, and environmental needs in the US itself.

The words of democracy conflict with the actions of empire in the Middle East

2011-05-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

The US military and quasi-military interventions and ambitions are virtually worldwide, even greater than the over 1,000 US military bases already in place in scores of countries across the globe. The continuing war in and occupation of Afghanistan and the ongoing “non-combatant” occupation of largely devastated Iraq, the long-term support of un-democratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions, the US efforts to militarily bulk up India’s military and nuclear might (against China) – all are indications of US global special interests in these particular parts of the world And for what: for access to oil, potential oil/gas pipelines, sea lanes for the transport of other commodities, the sale of military equipment by US arms makers, the supplying of US troops, and the ability to move goods and military shipments to and from the Arabian Sea or Mediterranean Sea.

Afghanistan is an important component of this grand and ever-adapting, but mostly imperialistic, grand plan to advance hegemony wherever feasible. Afghanistan has a wealth of untapped minerals, a location desirable for a pipeline from the Central Asian countries (e.g., Turkmenistan), through Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea, an important geopolitical position, and a potential, and sought after, example of US/NATO power - e.g., another “mission accomplished.”

The imperialistic thrust of US power also has repercussions on domestic politics and policies. Imperialism is based unequal exchange, access to perceived vital resources, sought advantages in competition with other powerful or potentially powerful countries, the cooptation of elites who will serve the interests of the imperialist state. Generating fear of foreign attacks in the US population is a significant part of the willingness of many Americans to go on supporting a vast military-industrial complex. State and media propaganda also help to instill in the minds of many Americans that national pride is at stake and a hyper-patriotism is called for by all good Americans. It also serves the interests of other parts of the US corporate-dominated economy and polity to keep citizens confused about why their jobs and conditions of life are in decline. That is, the decline in the situations of most Americans is touted not to be rooted in the profit-driven plutocracy and imperialism but in their own alleged mis-directed consumer practices or poor life choices – or perhaps in immigration to the US.

Hence, one of the outcomes of imperialism is a huge transfer of tax obligations from the corporations and rich to other Americans – i.e., we are said to need their entrepreneurial inventiveness, and their investments, so that good things will trickle down to the rest of us. So, imperialism is linked to inequality at home as well as abroad. This is not a stable system because inequality, in its turn, generates tensions and conflict. In the meantime, the US is expanding a surveillance state that attempts to nip potentially serious criticism and action in the bud. We’ll see whether protests against Republican policies succeed to change the thrust of domestic policies and reign in US imperialism.

Here are some excerpts from articles published this past week that illustrate my points.

US military power an expression of empire“

James Carroll authors an article printed on commondreams.org titled “A Declaration of Empire: Proposed law would vastly expand boundaries of US military mission.

Carroll writes that the “House of Representatives is debating a new definition of America’s military mission….the proposed National Defense Authorization Act expands the notion of America’s enemy to include forces ‘associated’ with named antagonists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.” He continues:

“ According to its critics (including numerous House Democrats who asked last week that such language be dropped), this seemingly innocuous expansion would, in effect, license an open-ended bleeding of the American battle away from Iraq and Afghanistan to any location in which such vaguely defined associates operate. The two present wars could become three, four, or five, and could shift from the Middle East to Africa, South Asia, or anywhere that a photo, say, of Osama bin Laden hung in the barracks.”

But Carroll reminds us:

“…For most of a decade, the US military has already operated against an amorphous, transnational terrorist enemy under the broadest possible reading of its 9/11 authorization. Drones, cruise missiles, special-ops, and mercenary forces have hit targets with impunity well beyond the officially acknowledged battle zones. The Obama administration, otherwise so different from its predecessor, is freelancing militarily, just as the Bush administration did.”

Carroll asks why such an expanded mandate is perceived to be needed now.

“Though the language in the proposed legislation simply affirms what has become White House and Pentagon practice, more than policy is at stake. The law after 9/11 made an implicit claim to global force projection based on an emergency; the new legislation would explicitly reject any time or place limitations on that force. In other words, a seemingly subtle shift marks a movement from the exceptional to the threshold of normal. There is a word for the realm into which that threshold opens: The legislation is a step toward an open declaration of American empire.”
Carroll then makes the point that the expanded conception of “empire” is indicates that the US policymakers see the US as an exception to the use of military force and interventions “for the sake of political order and economic well-being – not only of Americans but of the world…the idea that the global rules of order apply to every nation except the one that enforces them.”

The consequence?

“Even so, the more far-reaching consequence of 21st-century American empire will be the final destruction of authentic internationalism — nations bound by the power of agreed democratic law, cross-border systems of checks and balances, all abiding by the same rules, mutually enforced. The destruction, that is, of the only world with a hope of real peace and justice.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/17

The illegal use of US military power rolls on in the Middle East: For oil, not democracyRep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) crafted the following message, which appeared on several sites, including the progressivenetwork.wordpress.com on May 19. The title: “US Actions, Not Obama’s Words, Tell Story of US Middle East Policy.”

“…When the President says ‘[i]t will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy,’ we must look more carefully at how this policy has been implemented as well as the implications of the actions that have already been taken.

“President Obama violated the Constitution by pursuing war against Libya without a Constitutionally-required authorization for the use of military force or declaration of war from Congress. His actions, and now his policy recitations, set the stage for more interventions, presumably in Syria and Iran. His recounting of the reasons for U.S. intervention in Libya is at odds with the facts. There was no clear evidence of an impending massacre in Libya. There was menacing rhetoric and a violent government put-down of an armed insurrection which may have been joined by some with legitimate non-violent aspirations. No one can justify the actions of any parties to this conflict. In any case, discretion requires leaders to move with the utmost care in developing military responses to rhetoric and similar care to intervention in a civil war.

“The UN mandate to protect civilians was exceeded almost immediately and used as a pretext for regime change. The U.S. and NATO are one in Libya. Our nation, through NATO, has taken sides in a civil war which is spreading more violence throughout Libya and putting more civilians' at risk. The Interim Council of the rebels moved quickly to a $100 million oil marketing agreement with Qatar, unmasking a potential reason for intervention: control over Libya's vast oil fields which can yield over $300 million in oil daily. The military intervention in a civil war against the backdrop of a struggle for oil casts a shadow of doubt upon lofty rhetoric about positive change, peace and stability. That the U.S. has not intervened militarily in Bahrain and Yemen demonstrates that violent intervention carries high risks and political resolution of conflict is desirable. We must be prepared to seek political resolution of conflicts through statecraft not through military force.

“NATO's expansion as ‘globocop’ is hardly about peace and stability. It has people in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the streets loudly protesting NATO's onslaught against innocent civilians.

“We have an obligation to work together to make America safe, but it is important to note that our intervention in Iraq was based on lies, that ‘the end of combat operations’ in Iraq is not the end of American occupation, and the war in Afghanistan could drag on for another decade. These wars, along with the conflicts over Pakistan, Yemen and Libya will continue to cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars and add trillions to the deficit, diverting resources from pressing domestic needs in health care, education, job creation and retirement security.

“The President wants to ‘advance economic development for nations that transition to democracy.’ It would be good to advance economic development in the United States, since there are over 14 million Americans are out of work. Such a high level of unemployment degrades our own democracy.”

Arming Middle East Dictators despite rhetorical support of “Arab Spring”

Nick Turse pens a typically insightful and well documents article on the following blog, and other sites, “Obama’s Reset: Arab Spring or Same Old Thing? His answer is to analyze “how the President and the Pentagon Prop Up Both Middle Eastern Despots and American Arms Dealers.” http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/barack-obama-arms-his-muslim-dictators.html

Turse opens his article: “If you follow the words, one Middle East comes into view; if you follow the weapons, quite another.

“This week, the words will take center stage. On Thursday, according to administration officials, President Obama will ‘reset’ American policy in the Middle East with a major address offering a comprehensive look at the Arab Spring, ‘a unified theory about the popular uprisings from Tunisia to Bahrain,’ and possibly a new administration approach to the region.”

His central argument: “In the meantime, all signs indicate that the Pentagon will quietly maintain antithetical policies, just as it has throughout the Obama years. Barring an unprecedented and almost inconceivable policy shift, it will continue to broker lucrative deals to send weapons systems and military equipment to Arab despots. Nothing indicates that it will be deterred from its course, whatever the president says, which means that Barack Obama’s reset rhetoric is unlikely to translate into meaningful policy change in the region.

Turse finds the contradiction, the hypocrisy, illustrated in many parts of the Middle East, and points out:

“For months now, the world has watched as protesters have taken to the streets across the Middle East to demand a greater say in their lives. In Tunisia and Egypt, they toppled decades-old dictatorships. In Bahrain and Yemen, they were shot down in the streets as they demanded democracy. In the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, they called for reforms, free speech, and basic rights, and ended up bloodied and often in jail cells. In Iraq, they protested a lack of food and jobs, and in response got bullets and beatings.”

US weapons were used to suppress critics of regimes.

“As the world watched, trained eyes couldn’t help noticing something startling about the tools of repression in those countries. The armored personnel carriers, tanks, and helicopters used to intimidate or even kill peaceful protesters were often American models.

“For decades, the U.S. has provided military aid, facilitated the sale of weaponry, and transferred vast quantities of arms to a host of Middle Eastern despots. Arming Arab autocrats, however, isn’t only the work of presidents past. A TomDispatch analysis of Pentagon documents finds that the Obama administration has sought to send billions of dollars in weapons systems -- from advanced helicopters to fighter jets -- to the very regimes that have beaten, jailed, and killed pro-democracy demonstrators, journalists, and reform activists throughout the Arab Spring.”

[….]

“Since the summer of 2009, President Obama, by way of the Pentagon and with State Department approval, has regularly notified Congress of his intent to sell advanced weaponry to governments across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under U.S. law, Congress then has 30 days to review the sale before the Pentagon and associated military contractors enter into more formal contract talks with individual nations.”

Turse’s analysis goes into detail to illustrate his thesis that the US has for years sold conventional and advanced weapons to dictators throughout the Middle East and continues to do so now.

Here are just a few of his examples.

“Last year, notifications also went out concerning the sale of F-16 fighters, armored personnel carriers, tank ammunition, and advanced computer systems to Iraq, C-17 military transport aircraft for Kuwait, mobile missile systems for Bahrain, and Apache attack helicopters and tactical missile systems for the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, however, was the big winner by far with a blockbuster $60 billion agreement for helicopters, fighter jets, radar equipment, and advanced smart bombs that will represent, if all purchases are made, the largest foreign arms deal in American history.”

He discusses the importance of military sales to US weapons makers and names some of the chief lobbyists for the Pentagon. And he points out that the Pentagon’s Arab partners across the Middle East have “deep pockets” for the purchase of weapons. The political and ideological “price” is that the long-standing US support of dictators. As Turse writes US weapons’ sales

“…may help to explain the Obama administration’s willingness to support dictators like Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak until their ousters were givens, and to essentially look the other way as security forces in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and elsewhere, sometimes using American-supplied equipment, suppressed pro-democracy activists. After all, the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, along with regional partner Jordan -- are set to spend $70 billion on American weaponry and equipment this year, and as much as $80 billion per year by 2015.”

US weapons have been used against critics rallying against Middle East regimes in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent armed forces “into neighboring Bahrain to help put down pro-democratic protests.” They were rewarded by the Obama administration with clearance for “$330 million worth of advanced night vision and thermal-imaging equipment.”

With questions being raised in the US about the size of the military budget, Turse’s following points are particularly relevant.

“…the Pentagon is leaning ever more heavily on rich rulers in the Arab world to prop up the military-corporate complex at home. If the Pentagon and the weapons makers have their way, the provisional successes of the demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia will turn out to be outliers as an Arab Spring turns distinctly wintry.”

The Point

The militarized foreign policy is a central aspect of US imperialism and the country’s elites and power-brokers continuing efforts to maintain US hegemony across the globe, especially in the Middle East and nearby regions in Africa and Central Asia that are important for their resources, geopolitical locations, and for shoring up the US “empire” against rising competition from China.

We should be vigilant against this policy and, among other things, be discriminating in distinguishing “words” from “actions.”

US options in Afghanistan

2011-05-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Now that a team of US Special Forces has found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, what are the chances of the US government withdrawing the hundred thousand US troops from Afghanistan over the next 12 months or so.

Bear in mind the cost of maintaining this large force is not a piddling sum in an economy with 16 percent of the work force unemployed, given up looking for a job after months of searching for one, plus those working part-time only because they cannot find a full-time job. There other signs of decline, including 59 million or so Americans who are without health insurance for part of a year or the entire year. There are also an unprecedented number of Americans who have been forced into foreclosure or who are paying more for their mortgages than their houses are worth and they can afford. There are other social indicators that times are hard for Americans. While wealthy people and most large corporations, especially in finance, pharmaceuticals, and oil, are making substantial profits and paying low actual rates of taxes, the overall trend in both income and wealth distributions show that only the top few percent of the population are reaping benefits. In the meantime wages stagnate or fall and more and more families are lucky to have even one member in a job.

If US policymakers decided to end the war/occupation in Afghanistan, and used the savings from the occupation/war for pressing domestic needs in our country, it would make a significant difference. Just one example. The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities estimates that the budget shortfalls for 44 of the 50 states will total $112 billion for fiscal year 2012, which begins on July 2, 2011. The anticipated state deficits could be paid for by what is now being spent on the US occupation of Afghanistan. The CBPP report notes that one of the reasons for why the state deficits is this: “Federal assistance for states, which has been enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts, will be largely gone by the end of fiscal year 2011.” The $120 billion spent annually by the US government on the Afghanistan war/occupation would go a long way in averting the state deficits and in the process save tens of thousands of public-sector jobs. (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711)

Afghanistan War OptionsThere are three general options being considered on the issue of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and this has been true for some years. I’ll start with the most conservative option, then consider the slow and hedged withdrawal option, and finally focus on the accelerated withdrawal option, the option that we at “stopafghanwar” have advocated.

The Republican/Conservative Option: Increase or sustain US troop levels and do what it takes to “win” the war in Afghanistan.From this perspective, US government policymakers and military leaders should support an increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. This is the position of Sen. McCain and most Republicans, excluding those with libertarian values. Max Boot writes in an article for Commentary magazine (4-19-11) that we need to build more military bases in Afghanistan to assure the Afghan government and people that the US will not again abandon them. Boot contends: “ if we are to safeguard hard-fought gains, we will need to maintain a military presence in that country for many years too, just as we have in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.”

Anthony Dimaggio refers to other Republican positions on Afghanistan, and writes:

“John McCain announced shortly following the ’09 Afghanistan escalation that any inclusion of a withdrawal date was ‘dispiriting,’ and would guarantee that Afghans would be less likely to ‘risk their lives to take our side in this fight.’ The withdrawal date, McCain argued, is one that ‘enemies can exploit to weaken and intimidate our friends.’ In March of this year, Republican Congressman Mike Coffman similarly announced that he was skeptical of a possible withdrawal, considering the ‘security interests in Afghanistan that we must accept…we need to make sure that the Taliban don’t take over the country.’ Coffman’s comments came at a time when a non-binding House resolution calling for a full, accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan (by year’s end) was defeated by a vote of 93-321, with only eight Republicans voting in support.” (http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio04262011.html)

The expectation of the Republicans and most conservatives is that additional US forces, as many as are deemed necessary, will finally result in the conquest of the Taliban and any other insurgents, the creation of a stable central government, the realization of Afghan military and police forces capable of maintaining law and order in the country, and a situation where warlords, drug lords, and tribal elders are willing to go along with the US project. When all of this is accomplished, the US would then be able to withdraw some of its troops with honor, its stature as the strongest military power intact, and in a position to influence geopolitical and fossil fuel issues in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions. After all is said and done, winning and maintaining the US hegemonic position is what matters most.

The Republican/Conservative vision is, in the end, wishful thinking that will waste resources and lives and serve the further destabilize the world.

Second Option, Realists/Pragmatists in the Political Center: Surges in troop levels coupled with the Promise of Token Withdrawals of troops

President Obama and his administration are among the paramount realists/pragmatists when it comes to Afghanistan. They want to compromise. On the one hand, they want to continue the war toward an ultimate victory, that is, continuing the status quo in troop levels with periodic surges in troop levels. On the other hand, they will bend to public opinion and political realities with promises of the withdrawal of some troops and even actual, though token, withdrawal of some troops now and again.

The compromise is likely next to be based on token withdrawals, referring to an end date, say, the end of 2014, and hedging this date by specifying that “conditions on the ground” and recommendations from the military brass may lengthen the time the same level of troops, or more than now, stay in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has recently recommended that 5,000 US troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan beginning in July of this year (2011) and another 5,000 in December.

It’s not clear yet what Obama will do in July with respect of the status of US troops in Afghanistan. But it is clear that he savored the “victory” of bin Laden’s killing. Here again from our last post on this site is a summary of what Obama said on May 2 to the nation and world in his celebratory announcement of bin Laden’s death.

He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Will the president tilt to the status quo or support a token withdrawal in July? Whichever it is, Obama was exalted by the killing of bin Laden, with the implication that we can “win” this war in time. Bear in mind also that if there are token withdrawals, this does not rule out surges in troop levels in the future.

Anthony Dimaggo, whose article is cited above, suggests also that Obama will tilt for the foreseeable future toward the status quo, with perhaps periodic emergency surges. His argument is persuasive.

“In the case of Afghanistan, the Obama administration announced that the beginning of a phased withdrawal could begin as early as July of 2011, and continue through 2014. The 2011 withdrawal date was promised as far back as late 2009, at the same time that Obama announced his ‘surge’ of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Obama’s ‘09 withdrawal announcement, made simultaneously alongside his announcement of the escalation of war, was unprecedented in U.S. history. Rarely do aggressors provide an ‘exit strategy’ at the onset of their onslaughts. This novel development, however, reflected not so much the ‘democratic’ responsiveness of the Obama administration to the public (considering that most Americans opposed the war at the time, and continue to do so today), but rather a begrudging concession on the part of the Democrats that they can no longer pursue (a la Bush) bloody wars without a (at least vague) promised end in sight. Still the unprecedented escalation-de-escalation strategy should hardly be viewed as a ‘revolutionary’ development in U.S. foreign policy. After all, under Obama the Afghan war is set to endure for a grueling 13 years at minimum, considering the initial escalation of the conflict began immediately following the September 11th attacks. Furthermore, through the first four years of his presidency, Obama will have spent more on the military than even George W. Bush did by the end of his first term. If anything, Obama has demonstrated that imperialist policies and military escalation can be even more effectively pursued under Democratic regimes, with ‘anti-war’ figures like Obama farcically celebrated as a proponent of ‘de-escalation’ and ‘peace.’

A third option, Liberals, progressives, leftists: Planning for a responsible withdrawal of US Troops from Afghanistan over the coming 12 months

This is generally the position we on this blog take and which, according to recent surveys of American attitudes, a growing number of Americans endorse, namely, to have policymakers plan for a full withdrawal by some date in the near future.

Proponents - There are those, like us, who advocate the position for a quick withdrawal of troops, removing a majority of US troops by the end of this year and the remainder by the end of July 2012. After setting aside some of the “historic” reasons supporting our position, we then turn to immediate justifications, and finish by consideration a general consequence of ending the US occupation of Afghanistan in these terms.

PUTTING ASIDE SOME HISTORIC FACTS - Putting aside the fact that the US, with the significant assistance of Saudi Arabia, supported bin Laden and other foreign mujahedeen to fight against the Soviet occupation of the country during the 1980s. We helped to create al Qaeda in the first place. Putting aside the question of whether the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was necessary or not and the assertion that the Taliban leaders were unwilling to negotiate on whether to hand over bin Laden to the US or not. As Noam Chomsky has documented, the Taliban leaders had not slammed the door on further negotiations. Putting aside the fact that the US did too little to support the Afghan government and people after bin Laden fled and the Taliban were defeated. Putting aside the concern that the escalated and surged military occupation of Afghanistan is based on US interests in having an oil pipeline built through from the Casipan Sea region down through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Putting such flawed or self-interest-based policies aside, there are other justifications for our position in favor of a quick withdrawal.

#1 - NO CLEAR GOAL - The US has not stated publicly a goal for staying in Afghanistan, except somehow to ensure that bin Laden is killed or captured (this is done), that al Qaeda is eliminated from Afghanistan (haven’t had a substantial number for years), and that al Qaeda must not return to Afghanistan in large numbers and use the country as its base of worldwide terrorist operations. This last point is based on the assumption that the Taliban will take over the Afghan government when and if a US/NATO occupation is ended and that this government will welcome al Qaeda to return to Afghanistan. The issue is taken up in the next point.

#2 – TALIBAN ARE NOT AL QAEDA – An article from Reuters, “Separating the Taliban from al Qaeda (February 7 2001) captures one of the basic differences between. The article refers to research by Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick, van Linschoten and Felex Kuehn that has recently be released by New York University. The researchers found that:

“the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda was strained both before and after the September 11 2001 attacks, partly because of their very different ideological roots. Al Qaeda grew out of militant Islamism in the Middle East, notably in Egypt, which — when fused with the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan — created its own view of global jihad. Taliban leaders grew up in rural southern Afghanistan, isolated from world events. Many were too young to play a big role in the Afghan jihad, and had no close ties to al Qaeda until after they took power in 1996.

“’Many Taliban leaders of the older generation are still potential partners for a negotiated settlement. They are not implacably opposed to the U.S. or West in general but to specific actions or policies in Afghanistan. These figures now understand the position of the international community much better than they did before 2001. They are not seeking a return to the failed interactions between the Taliban and the international community of the 1990s. At present they still represent the movement,’ the report concludes.
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2011/02/08/separating-the-taliban-from-al-qaeda

#3 – SUICIDE ATTACKS IN AFGHANISTAN ARE LINKED TO OCCUPATION, NOT TO ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST AND SUPRA-NATIONAL GOALS

Consider the facts notes by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman in their book, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. They maintain that suicide bombings in Afghanistan increased in response to the impact of the occupation.

“In the immediate aftermath of America’s conquest, Afghanistan experienced only a small number of suicide attacks – fewer than 15 total attacks from 2002 through 2005. Suddenly suicide attacks began to increase by an order of magnitude – with 93 in 2006, 137 in 2007, 136 in 2008, and 98 in 2009. Moreover, the overwhelming percentage of the suicide attacks (80%) has been against security targets related to American and allied forces, and nearly all (90%) carried out by Afghan nationals.”

Pape and Feldman make the following point about the principal cause of the rise in suicide bombing. “Although there are multiple causes, one stands out: the growth and redeployment outside of Kabul of Western Forces in Afghanistan” (p. 34).

The implication of their analysis is that if you end the occupation, you diminish or end suicide bombings. Another implication is that the principal opposition to the occupation is home-grown, not international in its participants or ideology.

ETCETERA – The goals of making Afghanistan a democracy, social order, economic progress, etc., have not been achieved over the last ten years of the US military presence and surges.
Consider the following incomplete, but telling, list of points, which have been discussed one time or another on our blog over the last18 months of the costs and lack of success.

• the corruption used to consolidate central government power
. the central Afghan government has not earned legitimacy in the minds of the majority of Afghan people
• the continuing ethnic divisions
• the fact that the Afghan economy remains dependent on foreign aid and the production and distribution of drugs
• the warlords sometimes with their own militia
• infrastructure problems have not been adequately addressed
• the continuing discrimination against girls/women in state law and traditions
• the absence of a well trained and committed Afghan army and police force
• the poverty, limited education, and lack of opportunities for the majority of Afghans
• the US cannot afford to spend tens of billions of dollars on another endless war
• the casualties and deaths to American troops
• the rising health care costs for US Afghan veterans for both long-term or life-long physical and psychological health services
• public opinion polls indicate support for a withdrawal of troops – a Gallup poll conducted May 5-8 found that 59% of those surveyed favored bringing the troops home

Some implications

The withdrawal of a large percentage of US troops in Afghanistan is not likely next year or for several or even many years (decades?). At the same time, the opposition to the war is likely to grow. The difficulty is that there are so many problems besetting Americans that they may not be sufficiently galvanized for the level of protests that are necessary to achieve the quick withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan that the liberal/progressive/left so desires. And the electoral alternatives may not give voters the option of a genuine and heightened withdrawal of troops.

In the meantime, those reporting on the war, those engaging in the sustained collection of evidence on the war and its effects, and those offering proposals for an end to the Afghanistan war, will serve an important purpose – helping to keep the significance

Implications of bin Laden's killing for US Afghanistan and broader military policies

2011-05-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

The killing of Osama bin Laden by 25 special force members of the Navy Seals Team Six has produced a speech-for-the-moment from President Obama, followed by a media frenzy of news and commentary.

President Obama offered his views in a televised statement to the country (and world). He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The media, at least initially echoed the president’s themes. Joshua Holland sums it up nicely:

“The Obama administration deftly shaped the media coverage of its prized kill by detailing a picture-perfect, morally unambiguous special forces operation, which culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden. Most of the details of that narrative have now unraveled, but the conventional wisdom that the tale established remains. As Glenn Greenwald put it, that's par for the course: ‘the narrative is set forever by first-day government falsehoods uncritically amplified by establishment media outlets, which endure no matter how definitively they are disproven in subsequent days.’”
(http://www.alternet.org/story/150857/7_deceptions_about_bin_laden%27s_killing_pushed_by_the_obama_administration)

In this celebratory account by the President, the killing of Osama is a “victory,” honorable, something only the US can do, and it enhances America’s security. Any terrorist group that threatens America or its allies will eventually be squashed. Former President Bush, Jr., could not have told the story any better. There is no context here, no history, no accounting of how US interference has been significant for over thirty years in bringing al-Qaeda to life and shaping, directly and indirectly, the devastation of an already impoverished Afghanistan society. There is no reference to any US interests in oil pipelines, minerals, and the sheer geo-political desire to maintain some semblance of US dominance in the region.

There are a few other issues that stand out for many of us who opposed the war in Afghanistan from the beginning and who support an expedited withdrawal. The ten-year-old war against and the occupation of Afghanistan have been overwhelmingly against a multi-faceted Taliban, who are variously fighting to advance their own interests, the commands of warlords, the corruption of the national police in their areas and a society ridden by corruption, the US air war, the Special Forces’ mid-night raids, the weakness of reconstruction projects, the illegitimate central government, conflicting interests among ethnic groups, prisons known for torture, refugee camps, high rates of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. This is a classic story of neo-colonialism, hardly a story of democracy, let alone a march toward true equality. By the way, there are no credible sources that establish that most so-called Taliban are linked to or dominated by the regional and international ambitions of al-Qaeda.

Democracy Now covered well the critical narrative of this killing of Osama. On the May 5th program, co-host Amy Goodman asked Allan Nairn, award-winning journalist and activist, for his thoughts on the event and whether, in his view, this could “mean the end of the US war with Afghanistan?” Before turning to Nairn’s answer to the first part of this question, consider the second part of it. Obama did not explicitly address the question of withdrawal; however, the thrust of his statement is in praise of military valor and an endless commitment to fighting our “enemies.” We’ll see by July whether Obama decides to withdraw many US troops from Afghanistan or not. His decision then will tell us something about his intentions and how much powerful military and corporate interests in the society continue to influence him.

ALLAN NAIRN [in response to Amy Goodman’s question]: “I don’t think it will [change much]. It should. It definitely should be an occasion for rethinking everything on a much bigger scale than Afghanistan.

“The first thing that struck me was seeing the Americans out in the streets celebrating outside the White House, outside the old World Trade Center site, people cheering, people exultant. And while some of that may come from bloodlust, I think a lot of it comes from a sense of justice. People like justice. They want to see it. And in this case, I think many people have the feeling, well, he got what he deserved. This was a man who had massacred civilians; he got what he deserved. And there’s a lot of truth to that. But if we recognize that someone who is willing to kill civilians en masse, someone who is willing to send young people out with weapons and bombs to, as President Obama put it, see to it that a family doesn’t have a loved one sitting at the dinner table anymore, see to it that a child and a parent never meet again, if we say that someone like that deserves to die, then we have to follow through on that idea, and we have to recognize, OK, if these things really are so enormous, we have to stop them. Killing bin Laden does not stop them. Bin Laden is dead, but the world is still governed by bin Ladens. People cheer because they thought they saw justice, but this was not justice delivered by—a kind of rough justice delivered by victims. This was one killer killing another, a big killer, the United States government, killing another, someone who’s actually a smaller one, bin Laden….

“Every day, the U.S., directly with its own forces, or indirectly through its proxy forces, its clients, is killing, at a minimum, dozens of people. I mean, just since Obama came in, in the one limited area of drone strikes in Pakistan, something like 1,900 have been killed just under Obama. And that started decades before 9/11. We have to stop these people, these powerful people like Obama, like Bush, like those who run the Pentagon, and who think it’s OK to take civilian life. And it doesn’t seem that they can be stopped by normal, routine politics, because under the American system, as in most other systems, people don’t even know this is happening. People know the face of bin Laden. They know the evil deeds that he’s done. They see that he is dead, and they say, "Oh, great, we killed bin Laden." But they don’t see the other 20, 30, 50, 100 people who the U.S. killed that day, many of them children, many of them civilians. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be out in the street cheering about those deaths.

“We’ve got to stop this practice. And Americans aren’t doing it. Egyptians, Tunisians are doing their part. They’ve risen up against the repression they face. I think we need an American uprising, if we’re to put a stop to this kind of killing of innocent people. And we need an American Romero, someone like Archbishop Romero of Salvador, who, in the face of massacres, of daily massacres of what in the end was more than 70,000 Salvadorans, stood up and said to the army of his country, 'Stop the repression. Defy your orders to kill, because there’s a higher principle.' About a little more than a week ago, I was in El Salvador and visited Romero’s old home, which I had never been to before, and saw that on his bookshelf he had Why Not the Best?, a campaign book by Jimmy Carter, which he had apparently been reading. Romero wrote to Jimmy Carter in his capacity as the archbishop in 1980, asking Carter to stop supporting the Salvadoran military that was slaughtering his people. And from what I know of Romero, he probably really believed that Carter would respond. He didn’t. Carter kept sending the aid. And within weeks, Romero himself was assassinated by death squad, that had originated from U.S. backing. Writing letters didn’t work in that case. And it doesn’t work here. You know, we’ve got to put a stop to this. Bin Laden is dead. And bin-Ladenism, if you want to call it that, should die also.”

Implications of Nairn’s statements.
The US has not brought peace and justice anywhere in the last 50 years or so through its military interventions or through US supported military dictatorships. Rather, it has supported regimes that have suppressed and stolen from their people, or allowed foreign transnational corporations ravage their environments and take their wealth.

(See Robert Scheer’s article, “A Monster of Our Own Creation,” for an overview of US involvement in Afghanistan over the last 30 years: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_monster_of_our_own_creation_20110504)

The American people are by and large ignorant of this long and brutal history. Nairn contends that the only way to challenge the US power structure and its militarized foreign policy is for the people to engage in massive protests and civil disobedience. It’s not clear how Americans will go from relative ignorance to involvement in such engagements. If it should happen, such an eruption would likely stem initially from declining economic conditions rather than the squandering of resources on foreign wars against poor countries. But once riled up, Americans may come to see the connection as salient, that is, the money spent on foreign wars and the military-industrial complex is mis-spent and needs to be redirected to building a sustainable and just society here at home.

Other issues connected to the killing of Osama include how much the Pakistan military and government knew about Bin Laden’s whereabouts, whether carrying out assassinations (killings) in other countries is legal and moral, whether it is time to withdraw troops or build on this “victory” and stay the course in Afghanistan. The question of what Pakistan’s authorities knew is still not resolved, though it doesn’t look like it will much alter Pakistan-US relations. It is indeed a violation of another country’s sovereignty, one of the bedrock assumptions of international law, such as it is. And the odds are in favor of keeping US troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014 at least, that is, continuing the policy that has already be espoused by the President and military leaders.

There is another issue as well, that is, the issue of how helpful “torture” of key captives helped US intelligence to identify Bin Laden’s place of residence.
Is the right-wing assertion correct that “torture,” or what government officials have called “enhanced interrogation,” provided the information that enabled US authorities to locate the whereabouts of bin Laden? Many of us thought this was an issue long ago resolved, that is, torture has not borne useful intelligence about bin Laden’s location or on any other important issue related to this war.

Democracy Now provides the following summary of a position that rebuts right-wing assertions on its May 4th program.

“The death of Osama bin Laden has sparked a debate over whether torture of suspects held at places such as the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay helped track down and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Some claim the mission vindicated controversial Bush policies on harsh interrogation techniques. We speak with Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator in Iraq. "The laying of the groundwork, if you will, of these [Bush-era] techniques, I believe wholeheartedly, slowed us down on the road towards Osama bin Laden and numerous other members of al-Qaeda," Alexander says. "I’m convinced we would have found him a lot earlier had we not resorted to torture and abuse." (http://democracynow.org/2011/5/4/former_military_interrogator_matthew_alexander_despite

Here are excerpts from the interview.

MATTHEW ALEXANDER:
“The debate is skewed at this point. And one reason why is because we don’t know all the details, and secondly, because a lot is being left out of the conversation. And let me talk a little bit about that. One of the things that people aren’t talking about is the fact that one of the people that was confronted with this information that bin Laden had a courier is Sheikh al-Libi, who was held in a CIA secret prison and was tortured and who gave his CIA interrogators the name of the courier as being Maulawi Jan. And the CIA chased down that information and found out that person didn’t exist, that al-Libi had lied. And nobody is talking about the fact that al-Libi caused us to waste resources and time by chasing a false lead because he was tortured.

“The other thing that’s being left out of this conversation is the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed certainly knew the real name of the courier, whose nom de guerre or nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had to have known his real name or at least how to find him, a location that we might look, but he never gave up that information. And so, what we’re seeing is that waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques, just like professional interrogators have been saying for years, always result in either limited information, false information or no information.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, what’s happening now is being used by many to justify torture.

MATTHEW ALEXANDER: “That’s correct. And, you know, when you look at the use of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques in the case of the trail of evidence that leads to Osama bin Laden, what you find is, time and time again, it slows down the chase. In 2003, when we—or '02, when we have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we have the person most likely to be able to lead us to bin Laden, and yet we don't get to him until 2011. You know, by any interrogation standard, eight years is a long time to not get information from people, and that’s probably directly related to the fact that he was waterboarded 183 times.

“The other piece of the story that we don’t know yet is we don’t know how the CIA learned the real family name of the courier, who again, his nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. And we don’t know how the CIA got his real family name, which really was the key piece of information that led us to be able to monitor phone calls and emails and discover his first name, his full name, which led to us finding him and then him leading us to the compound. So, until we have that information, which we don’t even know if it came from interrogations or if it came from a source, then we really don’t have a complete picture of how we got to bin Laden.
[….]

MATTHEW ALEXANDER: “ I was a senior interrogator in charge of an interrogation team. I conducted quite a few interrogations myself, over 300. I went out with the raid teams on these kill-or-capture missions to try and kill or capture, you know, leaders of al-Qaeda specifically. The time I was on the team, we were hunting a man named Zafar, who was in charge of the suicide bombing operations in northern Iraq.
And what I found is a couple things, Amy. The first is that non-coercive techniques, time and time again, proved extremely effective against al-Qaeda, especially techniques that came from law enforcement that were based on rapport building.
[….]

“And American interrogators have proven this time and time again, from World War II through Vietnam, through Panama, through the First Gulf War. And let’s go back to the successes of American interrogators. You know, American interrogators found Saddam Hussein without using torture. We found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, which helped turn the Iraq war, without using torture. And numerous other leaders that we have found and captured—another guy named Zafar, that I describe in my book—all these successes have come without the use of torture.” [The title of Alexander’s book is Kill or Capture.]

The Upshot –

It’s great that Osama bin Laden has been killed, though the illegal means used to do this give us pause. In the broad scope of US involvement in Afghanistan, it is like a blink of an eye. It is probably a morale booster for those who favor the war and helps to confirm in their minds that we are still a great military power and can do whatever we set our sights on. For critics of the war, it could –doubtfully - open up an opportunity to withdraw the troops: Mission Accomplished.

Close scrutiny of the US intervention in Afghanistan should leave little doubt that Obama and Congress should take decisive steps to bring it to a responsible end

Continuities of Torture in US wars

2011-05-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

All wars are savage, barbaric, immoral, as well as often illegal with respect to international law. They are also often in recent times asymmetric, in the sense that one side has enormous supplies of modern weapons and resources, while the other side is bereft of tanks, cannons, fighter aircraft, navies, predatory drones, advanced electronic communications, and the other deadly accoutrements that accompany such warfare. Certainly all this is true in the US/Allied wars on and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Richard Falk refers to such warfare as “one-sided” in one of the articles in a recently published collection titled The United States and Tortures: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse, edited by Marjorie Cohn. Here is some relevant text from Falk’s article.

“The United States and some of its allies, rely on and seek to sustain and enhance a posture of military dominance enabling the pursuit of political goals throughout the world. And this dominance basically relies upon American technological superiority in warfare that enables it to inflict limitless devastation on a foreign country anywhere on earth without fearing retaliation at home. It is an accepted idea in national defense planning in all countries to develop the most effective weaponry that is technologically and financially feasible. The disposition is reinforced by strategic thinking about how to inflict maximal damage in battlefield situations and as an instrument of coercive diplomacy. The US government, without any serious domestic challenge, has carried this image of national security to absurd limits, currently with an annual military budget about equal to that of the entire rest of the world” (p. 122).

US and its allies have devastated or compounded the devastation of the infrastructures, economies, medical and educational systems of Afghanistan and Iraq, killed tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians, created the conditions that facilitated such carnage, and wounded many others, physically and/or psychologically. These foreign interventionists have created refugee populations, produced homeless families, intensified and expanded already impoverished populations, and imprisoned tens of thousands of people arbitrarily, with an absence of due process and often with no or scant credible evidence of guilt.

In the process, the waste of American lives and resources in particular has been mind-boggling and -nauseating. The steep expenditures on the wars have helped to drive the US more deeply into debt, to leave other pressing national needs under-supported or ignored, and to create a heart rending situation in which the medical needs of hundreds of thousands of wounded or psychologically impaired veterans, not mentioning their families and communities, will often remain in need of health care for many years.

Torture – the continuities

I focus in this essay on just one aspect of the US-dominated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My principal argument is that the US has been itself the perpetrator of torture in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. These are well documented claims and accepted by informed people throughout the world.

The issue here is that torture does not go away when US or allied troops turn over prisons and prisoners to Iraqi or Afghan military authorities. It continues, though the US distances itself from the consequences. The culpability in now indirect rather than direct, but there is still culpability.

For some years now, the US military has been in the process of turning over US-controlled prisons and/or the prisoners to their Afghan and Iraqi military and police forces, trained and armed by the US. This process is not new. It is a process that was employed by the US in the Philippines at the turn of the century, as documented by Alfred W. McCoy in his book Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State and in many instances since then.

The example of Iraq – three sources

Tens of thousands of Iraqi men spent years in American prisons in Iraq. The prisons or detention centers and prisoners have been transferred to Iraqi officials, who are known for the brutal treatment of prisoners. The last detention center was handed over the Iraq’s justice minister in July of 2010. From torture to torture.

>#1 - Leila Fadel reports on this event and provides background information in an article for the Washington Post Foreign Service, “Some worry about abuse as US hands over final detention center to Iraq, published on July 16, 2010. Here are excerpts from the article.

“That moment closed a controversial chapter of the U.S.-led occupation, after seven years in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have passed through American detention centers. Often they were never charged with a crime. At Abu Ghraib, some were infamously abused and humiliated.

“Now human rights groups and Iraqis worry that detainees will be subjected to abuse in Iraq's crowded prison system. Torture was rampant during the reign of Saddam Hussein, deposed in the U.S.-led invasion. In the past two years, hundreds of torture cases in Iraqi facilities were confirmed by the country's Human Rights Ministry. This year, a secret prison was uncovered where inmates had been beaten and sodomized.

“’Unfortunately, Iraq is prone to detention and torture abuses, whether it's the former regime, the occupying powers or now the Iraqi government,’ said Samer Muscati, an Iraq expert at Human Rights Watch. ‘Under international law, you're not supposed to transfer detainees if they will get tortured. But how long can the Americans hold on to them? There is no ideal solution, but the Americans have a responsibility.’”

#2 Amy Goodman interviewed Malcolm Smart, the Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North African Programs, on Democracy Now, September 20, 2010.

AMY GOODMAN: Amnesty International has released a new report that finds more than 30,000 prisoners are being held in Iraq without charge, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. Amnesty’s report is called "New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq." [….]

MALCOLM SMART: Well, I think part of the problem is really a problem of impunity. This has been going on for all too long, and there’s a culture of abuse that has taken root. It was certainly there during the days of Saddam Hussein, but what we wanted to see from 2003 was a turning of the page, and that hasn’t happened. So we see secret prisons, people being tortured and ill-treated, being forced to make confessions. And the courts, although routinely detainees claim that they were made to sign false confessions, the courts are really not investigating those and coming to grips with them. And the perpetrators are not being held to account. They’re not being identified. On a number of occasions, the government has reacted by saying it will appoint inquiries after secret prisons have been disclosed and their locations have been found and prisoners in them have been found to be in a very severely ill-treated position. But the outcomes of those investigations have not been made known. [….]

MALCOLM SMART: Likewise with deaths in custody. We have in our report details of several cases where deaths are alleged to have occurred as a result of torture or ill treatment. Now, the standard practice of any authority in that situation, required by national law and required by international law, is to carry out an independent investigation. What were the causes, what was the circumstances, of the death? Now, this hasn’t happened. And again, we’re calling attention to the need for the government to show the political will to take measures against the torturers.

AMY GOODMAN: Malcolm, there were 10,000 prisoners, in your Amnesty report, transferred from US custody in Iraq to Iraqi custody—US basically transferring prisoners to a system that tortures them, unclear what happened to them in US custody.

MALCOLM SMART: [….] Since the beginning of 2009, under what’s called the Status of Forces Agreement, the two governments agreed to transfer custody of the prisons and prisoners to the Iraqi forces. Now, many of those detainees held by the US forces had been held without charge or trial for years without any means to challenge their detention. We’ve not made the claim that all those people are innocent of crimes….And here, we saw this Status of Forces Agreement at the end of 2008 making the way for the transfer, with no human rights safeguards written into that, although, quite clearly, US forces know that the record of Iraqi forces is a very grim one.

AMY GOODMAN: And the US is pouring millions, if not billions, into Iraq. The US forces are still there. They could do something.
MALCOLM SMART: Well, you know, I’m being told that the US forces now see it as an Iraqi issue, and the last of the prisoners, except for 200 who remain in US custody, have been handed over. In some cases, as we describe in our report, actually, the US recommended some of the people they had detained be released. But, in fact, the Iraqi authorities have continued to detain them.

>#3 - David Leigh and Maggie O’Kan, “Iraq war logs: US turned over captives to Iraqi torture squads, Guardian, Oct. 24, 2010 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/iraq-war-logs-us-iraqi-torture. Here are excerpts that capture another aspect of the torture reality in Iraq.
[….]

“Fresh evidence that US soldiers handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad has emerged in army logs published by WikiLeaks.
“The 400,000 field reports published by the whistle blowing website at the weekend contain an official account of deliberate threats by a military interrogator to turn his captive over to the Iraqi ‘Wolf Brigade’.

“The interrogator told the prisoner in explicit terms that: ‘He would be subject to all the pain and agony that the Wolf battalion is known to exact upon its detainees.’
[….]

“Within the huge leaked archive is contained a batch of secret field reports from the town of Samarra. They corroborate previous allegations that the US military turned over many prisoners to the Wolf Brigade, the feared 2nd battalion of the interior ministry's special commandos.
[….]

“The field reports chime with allegations made by New York Times writer Peter Maass, who was in Samarra at the time. He told Guardian Films : ‘US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing,’ while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said.

“An interview conducted by Maass in 2005 at the improvised prison, accompanied by the Wolf Brigade's US military adviser, Col James Steele, had been interrupted by the terrified screams of a prisoner outside, he said. Steele was reportedly previously employed as an adviser to help crush an insurgency in El Salvador.

“The Wolf Brigade was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents. Members typically wore red berets, sunglasses and balaclavas, and drove out on raids in convoys of Toyota Landcruisers. They were accused by Iraqis of beating prisoners, torturing them with electric drills and sometimes executing suspects. The then interior minister in charge of them was alleged to have been a former member of the Shia Badr militia.” [….]

The example of Afghanistan

Gareth Porter provides background information on the situation of the transfer of prisoners from US and NATO forces to Afghanistan military/police forces and the perpetuation of torture. Porter’s article, “The Torture Mill,” appeared in Counter Punch on April 27, 2011.

“Starting in late 2005, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan began turning detainees over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite its well-known reputation for torture.

“Interviews with former U.S. and NATO diplomats and other evidence now available show that United States and other NATO governments become complicit in NDS torture of detainees for two distinctly different reasons. [….]

“The transfers to the NDS were a direct violation of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which forbids the transfer of any person by a State Party to "another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." [….]

“….the detainees were turned over the NDS, which had long had a reputation for torturing suspected enemies of the state, starting when it was the secret police and intelligence agency during the Soviet occupation. That reputation had continued under the government of President Hamid Karzai. [….]

“By the time U.S. and Canadian military commanders began large-unit sweeps in areas where the Taliban had been operating in 2004-2005, the George W. Bush administration had already decided to consider all Afghans in detention as "unlawful combatants".
“But most of the Afghans picked up in those sweeps were not Taliban fighters. After U.S. and NATO forces began turning over detainees to the NDS, the intelligence agency's chief Amrullah Saleh told NATO officials that the agency had to release two-thirds of the detainees who had been transferred to it, according to the NATO diplomat. [….]

“In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen published May 16, 2007, Canadian Brig. Gen. Jim Ferron, then the intelligence chief for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command in Afghanistan, referred to the intelligence motive for both detention and transferring detainees to NDF. [….]

" much of the information provided by detainees was "not truthful and is aimed at deceiving military forces". Ferron explained that detainees went through "basic questioning" by NATO interrogators about "why they joined the insurgency" and the information was then turned over to NDS. [….]

“Ferron said senior NDS officials had assured him that "detainees are treated humanely." But only three weeks earlier, the Toronto Globe and Mail had published a series of investigative articles based on interviews with detainees turned over by the Canadians who had been tortured by NDS. [….]

“The British and Dutch also joined with U.S. officials in trying to get the Afghan government to shift responsibility for detainees from NDS to the Afghan Ministry of Defence, the NATO diplomat recalled.

“But there were two problems: under Afghan law, there was no provision for long-term legal internment, and a 1987 Afghan law gave NDS the responsibility for handling security cases through its own "security courts".

“The U.S. and its two European NATO allies wanted President Hamid Karzai to remove those legal obstacles to long-term detention by the Defence Ministry. "The idea was that Karzai would declare a state of emergency, so the government could hold people for the length of the conflict," the diplomat said. [….]

“But Karzai refused to declare a state of emergency, according to the NATO diplomat, because he didn't want to make concessions to the Afghan parliament to get it. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak "wanted nothing to do with detainee policy", said the NATO diplomat. [….]

“During 2009, ISAF transferred a total of 350 detainees to NDS, according to official data provided to IPS by a knowledgeable U.S. source. An even more detainees were transferred to NDS by U.S. troops operating separately from the NATO command, according to the source.”

Implications

State authorities and a compliant media can create an atmosphere of lawlessness and inhumanity by demonizing “enemies of America” and creating a climate of fear in the American population. But also the US government can break the law when the population is kept ignorant of relevant information because “national security” is said to be at stake.

We may think that the scandals that brought to light the terrible treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are now behind us or in the process of being fixed. Then we learn they go on, sometimes under the authority of those who US forces have trained and for whom they have set examples. Through it all, though, the brutish and callous treatment toward the “enemy” is perpetuated by the darker, but essential, aspects of war.

US military presence for many years to come in Afghanistan and Iraq

2011-04-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, the majority in the US Congress, and the top military brass support the policy that an unspecified number of the 100,000 US forces stationed in Afghanistan as of now will remain in the country until the end of 2014, and perhaps beyond that time depending on how the generals in command assess “conditions on the ground.”

There is still a question about whether some troops will be withdrawn at the end of July, the goal Pres. Obama promised to achieve back in December of 2009 when he authorized an additional 20,000 US troops for deployment to Iraq.

While the Obama administration and Department of Defense have not yet specified the number of troops that will be brought home in 2011, there are indications that the US military will have a strong presence in Afghanistan until at least 2014, and perhaps beyond that year.
Perhaps the strongest indication is the sheer volume of military bases that were already built and in operation by early 2010. In February of 2010, Nick Turse documented this fact in an article re-printed on Alternet.org, “Totally occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan.” Here are some of Turse’s observations.

“Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.”

“Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.”

http://www.alternet.org/world/1456311

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Recent developments in Iraq serve as an example of what is likely to unfold in Afghanistan.
In September of 2010, Sharif Abdel Kouddous interviewed Jacquie Soohen on Democracy Now.org, on this issue of whether many bases in Iraq would remain under US control and occupation. Jaquie Soohen is an independent journalist of Big Noise Films who has reported on this issue. During this segment, DN runs parts of a documentary film Soohen did originally for the program Empire on Al Jazeera English, along with the interview with Soohen and also Jeremy Scahill. Soohen raises the question whether the US military is planning for “an enduring presence” in Iraq rather than a genuine withdrawal. The facts support the former.

“JACQUIE SOOHEN: The current Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq requires a full US withdrawal and an end to the occupation. And the US military and State Department are busy planning for what they call an "enduring presence" after the treaty’s deadline on December 31st, 2011. But on bases like this one in Balad, Iraq, the military continues to invest hundred of millions in infrastructure improvements, and it is difficult to imagine them fully abandoning everything they are building here.

COL. SAL NODJOMIAN: Joint Base Balad is approximately ten square miles, which equates to about 6,500 acres. To put that in relative terms, Andrews Air Force Base, which is right outside DC, is about 20 percent smaller than that. And we don’t even have golf courses here, so that kind of puts it in perspective of how big that is. We have about 28,000 people who call Joint Base Balad home.

JACQUIE SOOHEN: US Air Force Colonel Sal Nodjomian takes us on a tour of what is essentially a small American city, complete with three large gyms, multiple shopping centers, recreation areas and a movie theater. In 2003, military planners expected to keep Balad as a long-term air base. While smaller US outposts are closing down around the country, Balad keeps expanding. And some in the military still believe that the US Air Force will remain here past the 2012 deadline.

COL. SAL NODJOMIAN: Our senior leadership is studying options to draw down our presence here in Iraq. Joint Base Balad is one of the bases that’s often talked about as one of the more semi-permanent or strategic overwatch bases.
[….]

COL. SAL NODJOMIAN: If an agreement is reached, and the Iraqis ask us to stay or invite us to stay, in whatever capacity, whether it’s a training capacity or a collective capacity, then that’s something that can be—that’ll be decided.

JACQUIE SOOHEN: It remains to be seen whether conventional US forces will stay in some of these massive bases. But there are some troops who definitely plan to be here after the withdrawal deadline. Forty-five hundred members of elite special operations forces will train Iraqis and cooperate on counterterrorism missions.

BRIG. GEN. SIMEON TROMBITAS: We have advisers that work with the whole chain of INCTF.

JACQUIE SOOHEN: Brigadier General Simeon Trombitas shows us a training exercise of Iraq’s counterterrorism force that his men train and work with. He says that they spend most of their day side by side with Iraqi officers.

BRIG. GEN. SIMEON TROMBITAS: Throughout the world and in this region, special forces are—you know, we’re special because we do maintain a relationship with foreign forces. There will be a working relationship for a while.

JEREMY SCAHILL: The United States is going to continue to train Iraqi special operations forces. What this essentially amounts to is an Iraqization of the US occupation.
BRIG. GEN. SIMEON TROMBITAS: We maintain that relationship so we, you know, impart our values and maintain those values. And the longer we work together, the more liked we are.

JEREMY SCAHILL: What this means is that the United States can say, "We don’t have a military occupation in Iraq," while at the same time having US military forces effectively directing forces that are masquerading as indigenous but in reality amount to basic proxy forces for the United States.

JACQUIE SOOHEN: In addition to several thousand special operations forces and an unknown number of Air Force personnel, the US State Department has announced that it will hire an army of as many as 7,000 mercenaries to be deployed on five enduring presence posts across Iraq.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yes, a lot of US military forces are going to be leaving the country, but what we’re seeing happen right now, the US State Department is beginning a militarization of its operations in Iraq. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked for a doubling of the number of armed private security contractors in the country. The State Department has also put in a request from the Pentagon for military-grade equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, armored vehicles. What we’re seeing in Iraq right now is a downsizing and a rebranding of the US occupation.

http://democracynow.org/appearances/enduring_presence, Sept. 1, 2010

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Bases are not built or taken over in Afghanistan or Iraq on the assumption that they, or many of them, will be abandoned after the officially defined end of an occupation. The US economy and political power in the world are declining. The self-image of US exceptionalism and US power around the world rests increasingly on US military superiority. Losing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would provide evidence that the ability of the US to get its way in the world based on military force is diminishing. US leaders will resist such outcomes.

History doesn’t offer much basis for optimism. Here is a quote from the Democracy Now interview above from Andrew Bacevich that sums it up well.

ANDREW BACEVICH: My guess is that the US government and the Iraqi government [and now the Afghanistan government] will find some way of finessing this promise to close down US bases. You know, we’ve had Air Force bases in the United Kingdom for the last half-century. They’re not called US Air Force bases. They’re called Royal Air Force bases. But they’re owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the United States Air Force. So there are ways—ways to work around what might seem like an airtight commitment.

Why Americans want an end to the Afghanistan war

2011-04-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

I refer to evidence and commentary on four interrelated issues in this post, some of which have been the subject of previous posts over the past 16 months. First, a growing majority of Americans want an end to the Afghanistan War. Second, there are identifiable reasons for this growing opposition. Third, I emphasize the “reason” that we just can’t afford this endless war. Fourth, I allude to perhaps the most important reason for rising opposition to the war/occupation, namely, US troop casualties, including number of deaths, number of wounded, and veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, are going up. The total numbers are very high, but are even higher if you should take into account the indirect impacts on the families and communities that are directly affected.

Issue #1 – growing opposition to Afghanistan War

American attitudes toward the Afghanistan War indicate that a decided majority of Americans want an end to the Afghanistan war and a withdrawal of American troops from the country before the end of 2011. CNN.com reports on a poll done by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll in January, with the headline “US opposition to Afghanistan war remains high.” The poll found that “six in ten Americans oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan… and 56 percent of the public believes that things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan.” The poll also finds that 35 percent of those surveyed support a continuation of the war. http://afghanist.blogs.cnn.com/2011?01/03/cnn-poll-u-s-opposition-to-afghanistan-war-remains-high

Three months later, on March 11, 2011, Sarah Seltzer reports on a poll by the Washington Post with a similar headline, “Americans Oppose Afghanistan War Overwhelmingly--Nearly 2 to 1.” Seltzer points out that “poll began asking only in 2007 whether the Afghan war is worth fighting, but support has almost certainly never been as low as it is in the most recent survey.”

Continuing, Seltzer writes: “NY Senator Kristen Gillibrand is introducing legislation to provide a clear timetable for the redeployment (drawing down) of troops, reports the Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel, beginning July 1st. California Senator Barbara Boxer is a co-sponsor.” http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/530172/americans_oppose_afghanistan_war_overwhelmingly_nearly_2_to_1

Issue #2 – The Reasons for increasing opposition to the Afghanistan War.

What accounts for the growing opposition to the Afghanistan War?

Given the ongoing economic crises in the US, more Americans recognized that we cannot afford an endless war, continued support of a corrupt and unreliable Afghan government, and the lack of success militarily and in reconstruction in Afghanistan. http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/530172/americans_oppose_afghanistan_war_overwhelmingly--nearly_2_to_1

Issue #3 – We can’t afford this endless war

William Hartung identifies ways that the $113 billion a year the US spends on the Afghanistan War could better be used for domestic purposes. Among other examples, he makes this one: "The tax dollars being spent on Afghanistan are enough to offset the $100 billion per year that House Republicans are seeking to cut from next year's budget, or enough to fill the projected budget gaps of the 44 states that expect to run deficits in 2012. In other words, if the Afghan war ended and the funds allocated for it were returned to the states, no state in America would run a deficit next year. " http://www.commondreams.org/healine/2011/04/06-7

Issue #4 – US troop casualties are rising

Perhaps, more importantly among the reasons for declining public support in the US for the Afghanistan War is that US troop casualties continue to go up. Wikipedia documents that American and allied casualties in Afghanistan have increased. The Wikipedia’s post on “Coalition Casualties in Afghanistan” provides the following evidence. “As of April 13, 2011, there have been 2,323 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001.” Sixty-three percent of the deaths have been to Americans. And the number has been increasing for both US and allied troops. Widipedia cites the following information:

“With 711 Operation Enduring Freedom and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) deaths, 2010 has been the deadliest year for foreign military troops since the U.S. invasion in 2001, continuing the trend that has occurred every year since 2003.”

In addition, Wikipedia reports that “10,944 American soldiers have been wounded in action in Afghanistan.” http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghanistan

The tragedy of the Afghanistan War for US troops and their families, communities and citizens across in the US is that the numbers don’t stop with deaths and “wounded.”

Daniel Martynowicz compiles some relevant facts in the following article, “Afghanistan PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] Worse than Vietnam.” The article appeared at: http://newsbythesecond.com/afghanistan-ptsd-worse-than-vietnam/2857

"Traumatic Stress Disorder has been a part of war since the time of Aristotle, however new evidence suggests it may be worse in the current war in Afghanistan than in any previous war. PTSD has been around for centuries. In the civil and revolutionary war it was called Soldier’s Heart, Battle Fatigue or the Thousand Yard Stare. In WWI and WWII it became known as Shell Shock or War Malaise and later Vietnam Syndrome or Gulf War Syndrome. It appears no matter what time period we find ourselves in, where there is war there will be PTSD.

"The Mayo Clinic defines Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as “A type of anxiety disorder which is triggered by a traumatic event. You can develop post-traumatic stress disorder when you experience or witness an event that causes intense fear, helplessness or horror.” Symptoms include flashbacks during which you relive the event for minutes or even days at a time, nightmares, severe depression, hopelessness, anger, shame, self destructive behavior, and hallucinations.

"In 1983, the United States Government started the National Veterans Readjustment Study as part of a congressional mandate in order to better understand PTSD and its affects on Vietnam veterans. At the conclusion of the study it was found that 15.2% of male and 8.5% of female veterans showed signs of PTSD and those with high levels of war zone exposure had a 35.2% rate of PTSD. According to the United States Department of Veteran Affairs, 1 million troops left active duty between 2001 and 2009 and became eligible for VA services. 46% sought treatment for some ailment, disease or disability and 48% of these were diagnosed with a mental health problem. This is a rate of about 25% of returning troops having some form of PTSD.

"The rate increases when the National Guard and Reserve units are compared with the Army and Marines, as National Guard and Reserve units not only make up 40% of our gross force in Afghanistan but are more susceptible to PTSD. As high as the PTSD rate currently is, in reality it should be higher. The majority of those suffering from PTSD due to the Iraq or Afghanistan war will not accept treatment. The VA lists possible reasons such as concern towards being seen as weak or losing respect, being treated differently, lack of faith in treatment or not being able to access the treatment required.

"PTSD makes it difficult for returning veterans to have meaningful relationships with friends and family, hold steady jobs, sleep peacefully and abide by social constructs and norms. Frighteningly, the rates of PTSD in returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan war is nearly equal with that of the Vietnam War already. With the real number unknown as the majority of those afflicted are opting out of treatment, the current war in Afghanistan could produce a higher percentage of mentally disabled veterans than any previous American war."

Some Implications In a time when the US economy is experiencing high unemployment, a housing crisis, stagnating wages, falling job benefits, the dismantling of the social safety net, more and more Americans find little justification for the continuing Afghanistan war and occupation. This is reflected in the polls. But perhaps more than anything the idea of “supporting the troops” is not sending them abroad to war but rather keeping them at home to help build an economy that is resilient within the limits of environmental sustainability.

Afghan victims of US war - some examples

2011-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

The major US media do not do a good job on covering how the ravages of the US/NATO war in Afghanistan affect Afghan civilians. Norman Solomon’s book War Made Easy provides one overview of the evidence.The media do report regularly on the deaths of US troops, the battle plans of the generals in charge, the battles against “the Taliban” or insurgents and their rising or declining influence, sometimes the details of specific US troop engagements, and how the training and use of Afghan police and troops is going. But the effects on the Afghan people are largely absent or on inside pages.

The coverage of these horrific events is better on antiwar and many liberal- or leftist- oriented internet sites or blogs. These sources are more apt to lift the veil on atrocities committed by US military forces. Here are some excerpts from some stories posted on various internet sites in February and March of this year.

strong>Civilian casualties up

February 2, 2010 – Derrick Crowe, political director of the Brave New Foundation posted an article on Huffington Post titled “2010: Worst Year for Civilian Deaths in the Afghanistan War.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/2010-worst-year-for-civil_b_817308.html

Crowe writes that 2010 “was the worst year for civilian deaths in the war so far, and irregular armed troops backed by the US and by the Afghan government are preying on the population while recruiting and abusing children.” His evidence comes from the latest assessment from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (.PDF):

Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010: the combined numbers of Afghan and foreign forces surpassed 350,000; security incidents mounted to over 100 per week; more fighters from all warring side were killed; and the number of civilian people killed, wounded and displaced hit record levels.

...From 1 January to 31 December 2010, at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan. This means everyday 6-7 noncombatants were killed and 8-9 were wounded in the war.

...In addition to civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of people were affected in various ways by the intensified armed violence in Afghanistan in 2010. Tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes or deprived of healthcare and education services and livelihood opportunities due to the continuation of war in their home areas.

"Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are widely considered as the most lethal tools which killed over 690 civilians in 2010. However, as you will read in this report, there is virtually no information about the use of cluster munitions by US/NATO forces. Despite Afghanistan's accession to the international Anti-Cluster Bomb Treaty in 2008, the US military has allegedly maintained stockpiles of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.

"A second key issue highlighted in this report is the emergence of the irregular armed groups in parts of Afghanistan which are backed by the Afghan Government and its foreign allies. These groups have been deplored as criminal and predatory by many Afghans and have already been accused of severe human rights violations such as child recruitment and sexual abuse."

Inreasingly, children are victims

February 14, 2011 - M. Lederer posts “Afghanistan Child Victims on the Rise – UN Report,” on Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/15/afghanistan-child-victims-rising_n_823369.html The UN report in question was released in early February and documents that

“An increasing number of children have been killed and injured in the conflict in Afghanistan, mostly by the Taliban and other anti-government groups… Lederer continues: “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report, which covers a two-year period from September 1, 2008 to Aug. 30, 2010, that children continue to be victims of suicide and rocket attacks, improvised explosive devices, and military operations by the Taliban and other armed groups as well as Afghan and international forces.

“The report cites examples of children used to carry out suicide attacks and plant bombs, and the recruitment of youngsters by armed groups as well as by the Afghan National Security Forces, despite a government ban on including anyone under the age of 18 in the military or police. […]

"In 2010, the report found that women and children made up a greater proportion of those killed and injured than in 2009, with child casualties increasing 55 percent from the same period in 2009. “It said three-quarters of the civilian casualties were linked to the Taliban and other armed opposition groups, an increase of 53 percent from 2009.

"On the other hand, civilian casualties attributable to pro-government forces decreased by 30 percent compared to the first half of 2009…” […]

"The report further indicatd the recruitment and use of children by all parties to the conflict was observed throughout the country during the two-year reporting period. The U.N. said it was able to verify 26 of 47 reported incidents, including several cases of children used – sometimes unwittingly – to carry out suicide attacks and seven cases of children recruited from across the border in Pakistan. […]

Information was collected from across the country on some 382 children detained on charges related to national security and 97 cases were confirmed as relating to the conflict. 'All were aged between 9 and 17 and included one girl,' it said.”Afghanistan Barack Obama

Killing civilians from helicopters by mistake is a war crime February 24, 2011 - Jason Ditz reports for Antiwar.com on a “NATO Helicopter Kills Five Afghan Civilians, Including Two Children, http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/24/nato-helicopter-kills-five-afghan-civilians-including-two-children

“Five Afghan civilians in the deseprately poor Kapisa Province were killed today by NATO troops while they were out hunting. NATO saw them, three men with bird-hunting rifles and two boys (aged 12 and 13), assumed they were insurgents, killing them. […]

"The killings are just the latest in a growing string of embarrassing NATO killings of civilians in the northeastern part of the country. Last week NATO killed scores of civilians in Kunar, and earlier this week bombed a family in their home in Nangarhar.

General Patraeus apologizes for troops killing children March 2, 2011 - Jason Ditz posts this news item on Antiwar.com; http://news/antiwar/com/2011/03/02/patraeus-apologizes-for-killing-nine-afghan-children “General Davis Petraeus today announced that the US is “deeply sorry” for yesterday’s air strike in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, a strike which killed nine children who were collecting firewood. “’

"'These deaths should never have happened,' Petraeus insisted in the wake of angry condemnation from President Hamid Karzai and public protests on the streets of the Kunar Province, where there was already anger about a NATO offensive which killed 65 other civilians last month.” […]

Human costs of this war are not captured in numbers

March 4, 2001 – Kathy Kelly posts an article on CommonDreams.org titled “The Cost of US Terrorism in Afghanistan: Incalculable.” Kelly is the coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence. The full article is at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/04.

She writes that “while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3% took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections.” The down economy was much more important than the war and its human effects.

Continuing: “U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kumar province, shooting them 'one after another' this past Tuesday March 1st. ('The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.' (NYT 3/2/11)). [...]

“Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. “The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,” said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. 'I myself was involved in the burial,' Noori said. 'Yesterday we buried them.' (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.

Kelly gives others examples of atrocities, including the following one: He [Patraeus] has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. ‘In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed,’ the police commander said. “’Another child was injured.’” [...]

She also points to the widespread poverty and refugees, the conditions of which affect millions of the Afghan people, including children and then concludes her article with these words: “Sometimes the issue is right in front of us – as it was to those helicopter crews - it’s up close so there can be no mistake as to what we are doing. According to the election polls we see the cost of war, dimly, but, as with the helicopter crews, it doesn’t affect - or prevent - our decisions. Afterwards we deplore the tragedy; we make a pretense of acknowledging the cost of war, but it is incalculable. We can’t hope to count it. We actually, finally, have to stop making people like the nine children who died on March 1st, pay it.”

Intentional Targeting of Civilians by US and allied forces

March 8, 2011 – CommonDreams.org published an article by Afghans for Peace, “Afghan Civilians Intentionally Targeted by NATO/ISAF forces” http://commondreams.org/view/2011/03/08-6

The article opens as follows: “Careful examination of numerous reports, and images/video footage, along with eye-witness and victim testimonies, clarify that Afghan civilians are the main targets of deadly attacks by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Although the Coalition forces claim that previous civilian massacres were accidental, Afghan-led peace movements believe that the killings are at best negligent to at worst intentional in nature."

Here are examples from the article.

“In Nangarhar province on February 20th, an entire family of six was killed by a NATO air strike into their home in the Khoygani district. A photo captured by Reuters shows that the missile directly hit the roof of the family’s home. The parents and their four children were all inside when the reportedly stray missile landed in their residential community. The father was a soldier for the Afghan National Army who died of excessive bleeding after troops delayed his arrival to a hospital.

“After a four day operation by ISAF and NATO in Kunar province over 65 civilians. More than half of the casualties were women and children, and this was confirmed by the governor of the province. Contrary to the abundant evidence, NATO claimed no civilians were killed and later insisted that insurgents were among the deceased, although villagers rejected this assertion. […] “Without regard for civilians, the Tarok Kolache village in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley was completely destroyed with 25 tons of bombs. Is the destruction of entire villages, which are the support system for the majority of Afghans, a logical tactic in counter-insurgency? Clearly, the Afghans who have suffered due to this disagree. A farmer of the Arghandab district asked

'Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?', while one angry villager accused the military of ruining his life after the demolition. [...]

“...In September 2010, it was revealed that a dozen US soldiers faced charges in their involvement of not only killing innocent Afghan civilians at random for sport, but also collecting the victims finger bones, leg bones, teeth, and skulls as trophies. The military refuses to release photos that show US soldiers posing with naked, mutilated and charred corpses of their victims. Sound familiar? The father of one of the victims killed was quoted as saying, 'The Americans really love to kill innocent people.'

"In fact, they had planned on killing more civilians had it not been for one soldier, Spc. Adam Winfield, and his father who tried relentlessly to blow the whistle. He had said his squad leader 'gives high-fives to the guy who kills innocent people and plans more with him.- I have proof that they are planning another one in the form of an AK-47 (machine gun) they want to drop on another guy.' Instead of honoring Winfield for exposing the truth, he was instead charged with the same crimes. His father had reported Winfeld’s statements to Army officials, but they turned a blind eye.

One can’t help but to wonder whether the killing of civilians for sport is more abhorrent or the apparent negligence and silence by the higher ups in the Armed forces. "

The occupation has done nothing good ovrall to change the conditions of the Afghan people.

Afghans for Peace. “The almost decade long war and occupation has done more harm than good, escalating violence in Afghanistan to its peak, and continues to deteriorate chances of peace for the future. Afghanistan has already been subjected to previous decades of war and now each new generation is haunted with both the memory and reality of endless bloodshed, death, and misery. The fact remains that Afghans continue to live with hunger and worsening poverty, torture and humiliation, planted with weapons, escalating air strikes and night raids. [...]

The Afghan people must be given a chance to makes decisions about their own future. “It is the right of the people to decide the fate of their country and there are no exceptions. With the recent revolts in Arab countries, it’s only a matter of time before Afghans follow their lead. This requires immediate change and an honest vision for a truly democratic Afghanistan. In doing so, we must be aware of the ground realities, namely the presence of NATO, Taliban, warlords as well as regional intervention.”

Signed by:Afghans for Peace Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Afghan Canadian Student Association

The point:

"Too many of us in the US are ignorant of the harm our military forces do to the Afghan people and others, or don’t care, or are preoccupied or overwhelmed by the challenges of their own lives, or who see the Afghan people as inferior or demons and not worth thinking about in this global “war on terrorism.”

But, whether we know the war/occupation or not, whether we support it passively or actively, it continues and millions of Afghan people suffer the agonizing consequences. Words are hardly sufficient for conveying the horrors of this and other wars. To hear and feel the tragedy of war, google A Children’s Prayer – Baylor Men’s Choir

Malalai Joya versus US State Department

2011-04-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

Malalai Joya versus US State Department

Malalai Joya is widely acclaimed across the globe for her work as an Afghan citizen, former elected official, as a critic of the Karzai’s government, warlords, druglords, the Taliban and oppressors of women, as an indomitable activist, as an author, and as an opponent of the US/NATO war and occupation. Why does she deserve wide attention? You can get a sense of her well-deserved achievements at Wikipedia, Malalai Joya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Entry Visa Denied

This extraordinary woman made the news on March 19, 2011, and ensuing days when she was initially denied an entry visa by the US embassy in Afghanistan to re-visit the United States. Joya had been scheduled for a three-week speaking tour in the US to discuss the paperback edition of her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, written with Derrick O’Keefe, along with her views on the US/NATO war/occupation of her country and other issues.

She has long taken the position that all foreign troops should leave the country as soon as possible, not a slow multi-year withdrawal of troops, not a continuing occupation until 2014 or later, but a full withdrawal as soon as possible, certainly sometime this year.

Reason for rejection of Visa: Bureaucratic rigidity?

The Afghanistan Women’s Mission identifies the official US reasons for the visa rejection, namely, that “[c]olleagues of Ms. Joya’s report that when she presented herself as scheduled at the U.S. embassy, she was told she was being denied because she was ‘unemployed’ and ‘lives underground.’ http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?p+1255"

It is true that Joya lives “underground” and may thus not conform to the rigid bureaucratic visa rules of the US State Department, but, hey, she does so to protect her life for having spoken the truth about the Karzai government, warlords, Taliban, and the war/occupation.

Here is what the Afghan Women’s Mission has to say about it. “Because of her harsh criticism of warlords and fundamentalists in Afghanistan, she has been the target of at least five assassination attempts. ‘The reason Joya lives underground is because she faces the constant threat of death for having had the courage to speak up for women’s rights – it’s obscene that the U.S. government would deny her entry,’ said Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S. based organization that has hosted Joya for speaking tours in the past and is a sponsor of this year’s national tour.”

Reason for rejection: Ideological exclusion?

Opposition to US decision quickly grew.

The news spread on the internet, stirring a widespread furor over the embassy’s decision to reject Joya’s request for an entry visa. Derrick O’Keefe gives some sense of this outpouring of support for Malalai Joya. In a post on malalaijoya.com, he shares his observations. “In just a few days, over 2500 people have signed an to protest the denial of a U.S. travel visa to Afghan women's rights activist and author Malalai Joya, who was to make a three-week U.S. tour to promote the updated edition of A Woman Among Warlords.

O’Keefe adds: “The effort to overturn this visa denial continues. On March 18, a letter signed by six congresspeople and three senators urged that Joya be allowed the right to travel and complete her book tour in the United States.”

US rescinds its earlier decision and grants Malalai Joya an entry visa, as she originally requested

The Afghan Women’s Mission happily posted that “US Responds to Broad Public Campaign, Grants Malalai Joya Visa!” http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?p=1301.

Here are excerpts:

“A U.S. Embassy today granted acclaimed Afghan human rights activist and former MP Malalai Joya, a visa, a little over a week after she was initially turned down….

“Afghan Women’s Mission’s Co-Director Sonali Kolhatkar responded to the news saying, ‘We are ecstatic and gratified that the government finally did the right thing and allowed Malalai Joya into the country so that Americans could hear what she has to say about the reality of the war, and particularly how Afghan women are faring under the occupation.’

The basis for Malalai Joya’s optimism There can be an end to the foreign occupation and a transition to a better Afghanistan.

The fourteenth chapter of Joya’s book, A Woman Among Warlords, is titled “The Long Road Ahead,” where she offers her alternative vision for Afghanistan. The basis for Malalai Joya’s optimism is captured by her beliefs in the basic goodness of the majority of the Afghan people. Here is how she expresses this optimism.

“…I believe that, given the opportunity, the Afghan people are capable of charting a course toward peace and independence.” (211)

“You can kill me, but you can never kill my spirit.

“As I often say, there are many others to follow me. Afghans are more than just a handful of warlords, Taliban, drug lords, and lackeys. I have a country full of people who know what I know and believe what I believe: "That we Afghans can govern ourselves without foreign interference. That democracy is possible here but can never be imposed at gunpoint. That the blood of millions of freedom-loving martyrs runs through our veins, and their memories live on in every corner of our country. That Afghan women have been at the forefront of our struggle throughout our proud history” (228-229). “Our enemies can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring” (229).

>Is it all just wishful-thinking?

It is not when you read about the uplifting experiences and achievements described in Greg Mortenson’s books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools. It is not when we learn about the challenges to or overthrow of dictators in North Africa and the Middle East. It is not when you become informed about the election of democratic governments in South America, despite generations of US domination. There may be possibilities for peace and justice that we have not dreamed of….

Malalai Joya is what such dreams, and their actualized expressions, are made of. As she titles the concluding chapter of her book, “A River is Made Drop by Drop.”

Disputing Patraeus

2011-03-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

Disputing Patraeus on Progress in theAfghanistan War

General David Patraeus testified before the Senate Arms Services Committee on March 15, providing an annual assessment of the war/occupation in Afghanistan. He is the top gun in Afghanistan as Commander of International Security Assistance Force and Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan. His assessment was cautiously positive about “US-NATO-ISAF” achievements in the past year, and upbeat in his expectations that Afghan forces will be able to take the “the lead” on security efforts by the end of 2014.

Here is how he begins his statement to the committee.

“At a bottom line up front, it is ISAF’s assessment that the momentum achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas. However, while the security progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is also fragile and reversible. Moreover, it is clear that much difficult work lies ahead with our Afghan partners to solidify and expand our gains in the face of the expected Taliban spring offensive. Nonetheless, the hard-fought achievements in 2010 and early 2011 have enabled the Joint Afghan-NATO Transition Board to recommend initiation this spring of transition to Afghan lead in several provinces. The achievements of the past year are also very important as I prepare to provide options and a recommendation to President Obama for commencement of the drawdown of the US surge forces in July. Of note, as well, the progress achieved has put us on the right azimuth [direction, path] to accomplish the objective agreed upon at last November's Lisbon Summit, that of Afghan forces in the lead throughout the country by the end of 2014.”

Gen. Patraeus reports that the additional troops he has received over the past year, from the beginning of 2010 to early 2011, has made a decided difference. As a result of increased “inputs” from the US and “47 other troop-contributing countries,” 68% coming from the US, the ISAF has been able “to conduct a comprehensive, civil-military counterinsurgency campaign, on staffing those organizations properly, on developing - in close coordination with our Afghan partners - the requisite concepts and plans, and, above all, on deploying the additional forces, civilians, and funding needed.” Continuing: he says: “Indeed, more than 87,000 additional ISAF troopers and 1,000 additional civilians have been added to the effort in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2009. And Afghanistan's Security Forces have grown by over 122,000 in that time, as well.”

The overall troop totals add up roughly to 262,000 troops, including 100,000 US troops, 40,000 troops from 47 other countries, and 122,000 Afghan troops. In addition, there are 6,000-8,000 civilians providing “services in logistics, intelligence, stabilization, and reconstruction.” (http://cnas.org/node/5399.), over 112,000 DOD contractors (http://fas.org.sgp/natsec/R40764.pdf), and more Afghan troops in the pipeline.

With all of these inputs, the “core objective” of the war/occupation remains [pathetically]“to ensure that Al-Qaeda is not able to reestablish a sanctuary in Afghanistan.” Al Qaeda! Patraeus implies misleadingly, that there are two options. Win or lose. If US and other foreign troops withdraw from the country prematurely and before the Afghanistan army is able (if ever) to protect the country by itself, then the Taliban (assumed to be a unified force) will take over the country and provide Al-Qaeda with a safe haven for its international terrorist efforts. With Taliban in control of the country and the Al-Qaeda ensconced therein, the “war on terrorism” will suffer a grave setback and US national security will be compromised. From Patraeus’ perspective, these perceived consequences of withdrawal are clearly sufficient to carry on the war/occupation for however long it takes to “win.”

In his assessment to the Senate Arms Services Committee, General Patraeus goes on to make other points. For example, he reports that the ISAF, Afghan, and other “international partners” have more efficiently captured or killed “insurgent leaders,” in recent months, the Taliban have been cleared from critical areas, the number of “weapons and explosive caches turned in” have increased, more troops have been positioned “to interdict the flow of fighters and explosives from insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan.” He also points out that the Afghan Local Police Initiative has been improved and represents movement toward a time when local communities will be able to defend themselves against “insurgents.”

In the meantime, he says, “I have put a conventional US infantry battalion under the operational control of our Special Operations Command in Afghanistan to increase our ability to support the program's expansion.” The US and international forces have gone to improvements in “governance, economic development, and the provision of basic services.”

In a word, General Patraeus’s testimony comes across as expected, with encouraging statements of progress and the promise of continuing successes in the future. But for all of this, of course, there are reasons to reject his cheerleading assessment. Here I’ll allude to a few of the reasons:

(1) the majority of Americans polled do not buy the idea that we should remain in Afghanistan to “get the job done” according to Patraeus and the other generals and hawkish senators and representatives in the Congress.

(2) The opposition in congress is going up. Though still a minority, it is a growing minority.

(3) Gen Patraeus does not say anything in his testimony about the costs to Afghan society and its people from the 10-year old war. There are great costs, the result of the US/NATO/Etc war and occupation or facilitated by them.

(4) The financial costs of the war for the US are great and the money could be alternatively well spent to address domestic economic problems.

(5) The many arguments in opposition to the war are and remain valid.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/threatmatrix/archives/2011/03/full_text_of_general_petraeus.php
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#1 - Contrary to Gen. Patraeus rosy assessment, most Americans don’t buy it and want a speedy withdrawal of US troops from the war

Reporting for The Washington Post, Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen, write on a “new Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds “nearly two-thirds of Americans [who] say [the] Afghan war isn’t worth fighting.” Additionally, almost “three-quarters of Americans say Obama should withdraw a ‘substantial number’ of combat troops from Afghanistan this summer….” Further, “[t]he number of respondents to the Post-ABC News poll who say the war is not worth fighting has risen from 44 percent in late 2009 to 64 percent in the survey conducted last week.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/poll-nearly-two-thirds-of-Americans-say-afghan-war-isn
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#2 - The number of Representatives in the US Congress in favor of a quick withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has gone up

Here is the full text of a blog entry on March 18, 2011, by Rebecca Griffin, who is a member of Peace Action West.

Yesterday, the House voted on Reps. Kucinich and Jones’ resolution that would have directed the president to remove all US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days, and if that was deemed unsafe, by the end of 2011.

“The bill gave war opponents in the House another opportunity to draw attention to the failing strategy and to highlight growing public opposition to the war. Rep. Farr (D-CA) summed it up effectively when he took to the floor in support of the resolution:

“’As many of my colleagues demand $100 billion spending cuts, they need look no further than our reckless war spending. For the good of our troops and the health of our economy, this war must end.

“’And this viewpoint is shared across the nation. According to a recent Washington Post poll, nearly two-thirds of the American people support an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, our job in this chamber is to represent our constituents, and they have spoken loud and clear. The American people are fed up with a war that has done little to improve our national security or bolster our international standing. Furthermore, after nearly ten years of fighting, it is crystal clear that the problem in Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means alone.

"Stabilization and reconstruction, governance, and peace-building activities can help to stabilize states, promote rule of law, and bring enduring peace at a sliver of the cost we pay for troops on the ground.’

“In the end, 93 representatives voted in favor of the bill. While we would have preferred a majority, it’s important to keep in mind that at this time last year, only 65 representatives voted in favor of a nearly identical bill. That’s significant growth, especially when many members of

“Congress are hesitant to ‘tie the president’s hands’ with specific dates, especially ones that specifically contradict his stated plan. More and more members of Congress are willing to draw a line and say it’s time to get out. See how your representative voted here.

“Some Senate Republicans criticized what they called ‘mixed messages’ about whether the US is staying or going in Afghanistan when General Petraeus testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. They’re right, though I’m sure we want the administration to affirm the opposite messages. When we continue to get members of Congress on the record with votes like this, we are saying that the one message is clear: it’s time for this war to end.”

http://blog.peaceactionwest.org/2011/03/18/vote-count-grows-for-quick-withdrawal-from-afghanistan
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#3 – Patraeus unsurprisingly says nothing about the costs to Afghan society and its people.

There were many articles that appeared during the weeks before and after Patraeus testimony that reminded us of the great costs and harms of the war and occupation for the Afghan civilian population and society. On our blog stopafghanwar, we have paid a great deal of attention to the devastation and death wrought by this horrendous situation. Here are sections from two articles that complement and amplify our concerns.

First, Patrick Kelly provides the following summary in his article “Pursuing Peace in Afghan,” for Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Here are two paragraphs from Kelly’s piece.

“Environmental degradation, poverty, and inadequate health care delivery are some of the serious challenges facing this country. Electrical outages are common and clean water does not appear to be in Afghanistan’s immediate future. It is also apparent that the Kabul’s infrastructure has not benefitted in a meaningful way from the billions of dollars that have flowed into Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion. The sewage and sanitation system is exposed and as the busses, cars, truck, and donkey carts maneuver the paved and unpaved roads around the city they create clouds of deadly air. The streets and neighborhoods are a collection of brick and mud homes, bombed out buildings, and piles of rubble that have survived the thirty years of war but do not provide adequate shelter for their residents. Garbage piles, excrement, and animals abound creating a smelly and unsanitary environment. It is these conditions that explain why Afghanistan has the highest rate of fecal matter in the air of any place in the world. These poor living conditions result in nearly 3,000 people dying a year from diseases and medical conditions related to the pollution (wagingnonviolence.com) and a life expectancy of forty five years. Afghanistan is also the third poorest nation in the world. The country is overflowing with orphans, widows, unemployed, and underemployed. The United Nations reports that 36 % of Afghans live on less than a dollar a day. Compounding the problem is that since the US invasion Kabul’s population has grown by over 600 percent. Outside of Kabul, the situation is not much better. Nearly 850 children die from respiratory, gastrointestinal diseases, and malnourishment per day (Save the Children, 2010). These are just some of the challenges facing the nation as people continue to deal with thirty years of war that have gripped Afghanistan.

“Violence is the other major challenge facing the country. The Red Cross says the security situation in the country is deteriorating and life is untenable (International Red Cross, March 15, 2011) The threat of violence is never far from people’s minds and the reality that violence could break out at any time is a constant challenge for Afghans. Since December 2010, levels of violence have increased across the country and Kabul has been rocked by three suicide bombings. While the ISAF is hidden behind 12 foot blast walls rung with barbed wire and sentry post, the day to day security operations are left to Afghans. On nearly every block there are people with automatic weapons patrolling the streets, acting as security for private institutions, and staffing the official and unofficial checkpoints that dot the city. The situation is further complicated by the blast walls and the barb wire which make the city look like an armed camp.

The resulting siege mentality and threat of violence creates futility and shows that the current strategy in Afghanistan is not working.”

http://vcnv.org/pursuing-peace-in-afghanistan

Second, Kathy Kelly offers in her article “Incalculable – the human cost of NATO’s war on Afghanistan, printed by Pulse Media, March 9, 2011, heart-rending examples of a few of the many thousands of Afghan children killed, maimed, or driven into child labor out of desperation in this war. Here is some of what Kelly writes, from her personal witness in Afghanistan as well as from media reports.

“U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, shooting them ‘one after another’ this past Tuesday March 1st. (‘The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.’ (NYT 3/2/11)).

“Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. ‘The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,’ said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. ‘I myself was involved in the burial,’ Noori said. ‘Yesterday we buried them.’ (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.

“He has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. ‘In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed,’ the police commander said. ‘Another child was injured.’

“In the Bamiyan province of Afghanistan, Zekirullah, a young Afghan friend of mine, age 15, rises at 2:00 a.m. several mornings each week and rides his donkey for six hours through the pre-dawn to reach a mountainside where he can collect scrub brush and twigs which he loads on the donkey in baskets. Then he heads home and stacks the wood – on top of his family’s home – to be taken down later and burned for heat. They don’t have electrical appliances to heat the home, and even if they did the villagers only get electricity for two hours a day, generally between 1:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m. Families rely on their children to collect fuel for heat during the harsh winters and for cooking year round. Young laborers, wanting to help their families survive, mean no harm to the United States. They’re not surging at us, or anywhere: they’re not insurgents.

"They’re not doing anything to threaten us. They are children, and children anywhere are like children everywhere: they’re children like our own.

“Sadly, more and more of us in America are getting used to the idea of child poverty – and even child labor – as our own economy sinks further under the burden of our latest nine years of war, of two billion dollars per week we spend creating poverty abroad that we can then emulate at home. Things are getting bad here, but in Afghanistan, children are bombed. Their bodies are casually dismembered and strewn by machines already lost in the horizon as the limbs settle. They lie in pools of blood until family members realize, one by one, that their children are not late in returning home but in fact never will.”

http://nwoobserver.com/2011/03/09/incalculable-the-human-cost-of-nato%E2%80%99s-war-on-afghanistan
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#4 -The enormous financial costs of the war for the US are great and the money could be better spent to address domestic economic problems.

In an article written for Sojourner’s online magazine, Jim Wallis discusses some of the costs of the Afghanistan war here in the US. Here is most of his article.

[….]

“What weighs on my mind is the growing cost of war and that so few are actually seeing the bill, both human and financial. In the two wars, there have been nearly 6,000 U.S. deaths and 40,000 wounded. Tens of thousands of others suffer from post-traumatic stress and other psychological disorders, and a growing number of veterans are committing suicide. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have died, which is hardly ever a focus of American consciousness.

“There has also been a huge financial cost. The war in Afghanistan now costs more than $100 billion per year, and the cost of caring for veterans is steadily rising. From 2001 to the present, the two wars have cost approximately $1.3 trillion. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes estimate that the total cost could go as high as $4 trillion to $6 trillion, including continuing care for veterans and the opportunity cost of inadequate funding for domestic investments.

“With unemployment and poverty rates at near-record highs, this misuse of our precious resources is staggering. President Dwight Eisenhower once reminded us, ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.’

“The military budget in FY 2010 was nearly $700 billion, with an additional $37 billion for Afghanistan. If we include the defense and homeland security expenses outside the Defense Department, the total exceeds $1 trillion. By contrast, all other discretionary domestic programs totaled approximately $400 billion. It is exactly the situation Martin Luther King warned of when he said, ‘A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.’

“How do we break this military addiction? People respond to incentives. If they know they are going to be footing the bill for something, they are more likely to count the cost. If we were paying extra taxes to fund the war and every family knew they might have to pay the human cost, we would be more careful about what we committed ourselves to.

“We are paying billions of dollars for weapon systems the military hasn't even asked for and doesn't need. Weapons manufacturing brings jobs to congressional districts, which keeps politicians in office. Those workers, and the politicians they elect, will do everything they can to preserve defense contracts -- whether or not they're beneficial to our security or our fiscal health.

“Many of those in the weapons industry are good people, working hard to support their families. I doubt they often think about what they are making or what it will be used for. We rarely hear Eisenhower's term "military-industrial complex" any more. But we have a system in which too many people rely on war and the tools of war for their livelihood. Good people in a bad system can have a lot of bad results.

“Part of our moral recovery must be to challenge the influence of this powerful engine. With the growing national concern over the deficit, and the desperate need for investment in our future, the amount of money spent on war is no longer tenable.

“There are many reasons to end the war in Afghanistan, as the articles in this issue explain. But the unaffordable cost is another compelling reason that we cannot ignore. Even some of the newly elected "tea party" members of Congress are raising this concern. The desire to restore fiscal sanity and to stop mortgaging our children’s future stretches across the political spectrum.

“It is time for the war in Afghanistan to end. Our financial and spiritual health depends on it.”

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj1103&article=the-cost-of-war
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#5 – Many arguments against the war.

You can find a list and discussions of a host of the arguments that have been made against the war in Afghanistan, all of which are relevant for the ongoing debate over when, if ever, to withdraw US troops from the country. Here is the list. You can find the discussions at Wikipedia,
“Opposition to the War in Afghanistan (2001-present). (See URL at the end of the list.)

1 Disputed legality of the U.S. invasion

2 Involvement in an Afghan civil war

3 Afghan civilian opposition to the invasion

4 Afghan civilian casualties

5 Coalition military casualties

6 International public opinion

7 International protests against the war

8 Foreign military occupation

9 Foreign military raids of Afghan homes

10 Destruction of Afghan homes and crops

11 Rejection of the terrorism argument

11.1 Creating and training insurgents

11.1.1 Insurgent detention and recruitment facilities

11.1.2 Incubating and disseminating bomb-making expertise

12 Geo-political and corporate interests

12.1 U.S. energy interests

12.1.1 Pipeline path 'clearing and holding' forces

12.2 War in Afghanistan as a demonstration of U.S. military power

13 Thriving opium production since the invasion

14 Financial cost of the war to taxpayers and Western economies

15 Length of the war

15.1 Comparison to the length of the Soviet war in Afghanistan

15.2 Decades of war imposed on Afghans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E280%93present)#Financial_cost_of_war_to_taxpayer_and_Western_economies
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In short, most Americans who think about the war are opposed to it. And General David Patraeus testimony before the Senate committee is hardly going to change minds, but it does provide a cover for the majority of Senators and Representatives who will go along with his recommendations and appeals for full funding of the war.

The evidence contradicting Patraeus’ sanitized commentary is belied by a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, what the majority of citizens think, and even minimal democracy, does not seem to matter. Democratic President Obama and Republican President Bush seem to present variations on the same tune coming from the military brass and weapons’ makers – stay the course. It’s the same old duopoly and same old military-industrial complex.

What is encouraging is that the opposition to the Afghanistan war still has many supporters and voices.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan wars fail

2011-03-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

Afghanistan: a destructive and losing situation for Afghans, US troops, US taxpayers; generating instability and violence in Central Asia; creating problems not solving them….

This site, stopafghanwar, has sought to gather information that illuminates why it is justifiable to oppose the US government’s war/occupation on Afghanistan. We have logged 343 posts since the site was begun by George Hartley back in November, 2009. Posts have covered diverse topics, including: Afghan government corruption, the use by warlords and druglords of private armies and militias to control local populations in areas not under Taliban influence, US contractor abuses, civilian deaths, infrastructure destruction, refugees, US troop casualties and deaths, the costs in dollars to US taxpayers, the confusion and ineffectiveness in US military strategies, how the war/occupation fits into the US imperialist goal of maintaining control over oil in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions, the flawed Afghan elections, detention and torture of Afghani citizens, the use of cluster bombs and drones by the US air force, the lack of reconstruction, the brutality of the occupation, the need for negotiations with all parties, and so on.

We’ve been inspired by the brave voice of Malalai Joya through her book, Women Among Warlords, her extraordinary courage, and her articles and speeches. Joya writes in the “Introduction” to her book:

“We need security and a helping hand from friends around the world, but not this endless US-led ‘war on terror,’ which is in fact a war against the Afghan people. The Afghan people are not terrorists; we are the victims of terrorism Today the soil of Afghanistan is full of land mines, bullets, and bombs – when what we really need is an invasion of hospitals, clinics, and schools for boys and girls.” Then, a few sentences later: “We are caught between two enemies – the Taliban on one side and the US/NATO forces and their warlord friends on the other….During his election campaign, the new president of the United States, Barack Obama, spoke of sending tens of thousands more foreign troops to Afghanistan, but he did not speak out against the twin plagues of corruption and warlordism that are destroying my country. But for Afghans, Obama’s military build up will only bring more suffering and death to innocent civilians, while it may not even weaken the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”

We also need to be reminded that the Iraq war and occupation also do not represent “success” stories and should not be used as examples to justify the continuation of the war/occupation in Afghanistan

US actions in Iraq, from 1991 to the present left the country in ruins, insofar as the majority of the population is concerned. On the Dec. 22, 2010 post, I offered selected parts of a series of articles and reports that help to confirm the environmental destruction and the human misery among Iraqis caused or facilitated by the US-led war and occupation. My general point then and now is that the Iraq war is an illegal war, war crimes were committed, and the country has been devastated and its people subjected to great harm and death. (see

http://stopafghanwar.blogspot.com/2010/12/iraq-war-will-not-end-with-us-troop.html, or google “stopafghanwar, Iraq war will not end with withdrawal of US troops".)

"The US leaders said that we were invading Iraq to “liberate” it. Tom Engelhardt summarizes in the following paragraph from his book, The American Way of War (2010) the “devastation” that US forces brought to the country.

“Since then, Saddam Hussein’s killing fields have been dwarfed by a fierce set of destructive US military operations, as well as insurgencies cum-civil-wars-cum-terrorist-acts: major cities have been largely or partially destroyed, or ethnically cleansed; millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes, becoming internal refugees or going into exile; untold numbers of Iraqis have been imprisoned, assassinated, tortured, or abused; and the country’s cultural heritage has been ransacked. Basic services – electricity, water, food – were terribly impaired and the economy was simply wrecked. Health services were crippled. Oil production upon which Iraq now depends for up to 90 percent of its government funds, has only relatively recently barely surpassed the worst levels of the pre-invasion era” (155)

The majority of Republicans polled still think our war/occupation in Iraq is a “success.”

Polls done in December, 2010, by the Pew Research Center and by the Gallup Poll Third, found a bipartisan split among respondents, with Republican majorities viewing the war as the “right decision” and as a “success,” while a large majority of Democrats holding the opposite views. These findings are unsettling, particularly because of the Republican political gains in the 2010 US congressional and state elections and their right-wing and militaristic agendas.

Pew Research Center poll – http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

Gallup poll – http://www.politicsdailey.com/2010/08.21/iraq-war-seen-as-failure-by-53-percent-of-americans - e.g., 70% of the Democrats say it will go down as a failure, while 60% of Republicans think the war will be judged as a success.”

Some of the delusions of our foreign policy decision makers

One important implication of presenting Iraq as a “success” story is that it helps to rationalize US interventions and long wars and occupations in other places, including Afghanistan. The idea is that if we continue long enough in a given war, then it will turn out better than if we withdraw “prematurely.” Derek Leebaert explores this kind of thinking in his book, Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.” Leebaert identifies six delusions, two of which are especially pertinent to the present discussion:

“A sensation of urgency and of ‘crisis’ that accompanies the belief that most any resolute action is superior to restraint; it’s a demeanor that’s joined by the emergency man’s eagerness to be his country’s revealer of dangers, real and imagined.”

“The repeated belief that America can shape the destiny of other countries overnight and that the hearts and minds of distant people are throbbing to be transformed into something the way we see ourselves” (pp. 7-8).

Good War, Bad War - Nonsense!

Captured by such delusions perhaps, or by the imperatives of imperialistic constraints, US leaders, most illustriously President Obama, have defined the US-led Iraq war and occupation as a “bad” but successful war, and the Afghan war as a “good” war. Well, to repeat a point made many times on this site, we believe that the Afghan war is misbegotten and horrible, not a “good” war. Every war is unimaginably destructive, especially on the surroundings and people caught up in and trapped by this or that war. In this sense, the so-called successful Iraq war is another nightmarish example in these terms. If anything, the Iraq war should not serve as an example for continuing the Afghanistan war but as an example for ending it now.

A cop out - President Obama’s “Oval Office Speech on Iraq,” August 31, 2010

On August 31 of 2010, President Obama gave a speech in which, among things, he said that we had achieved our military goals in Iraq and thus:

(1) “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended [not true];

(2) “[we] have removed nearly 100,000 troops from Iraq….[and] closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis….[and] moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.”[but over 90 bases remain in US hands, including the biggest bases]….

(3) “all US troops will leave by the end of next year” [now its 2014 - maybe].

(4) He also said that there is an “elected government” in power” [fragile, with Sunni participation fragile and key decisions about the distribution of oil revenues still to be made] and

(5) the Iraqi people have rejected“sectarian conflict” [there still violent attacks, though down in number but trending upward]

There are two principal implications of President Obama’s speech. First, the speech emphasizes that the US occupation forces and allied for forces have achieved victory, or something like it, in Iraq. Second, the speech suggests that the US war/occupation can serve as a model for how to deal effectively with authoritarian governments, insurgents or “terrorists” in other parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, or anywhere else in “developing countries.” The strong thrust of the speech is that the US has the right to intervene anywhere it identifies a threat to the US or its allies in the developing world, launch attacks by the US military and special forces, and attempt to replace a government that is antagonistic to US interests or “a failed state” or strengthen a government that acts in US interests. This latter point suggests that US leaders prefer governments, even dictatorial governments, that will advance or protect US interests regardless of the effects of the people of a given country. This has been true of many US interventions in many “developing” countries for the last 150 years or so. (See a partial but detailed documentation of this point in William Blum’s Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.)

Bush-like

We think that President Obama’s declaration of a successful end of the US combat involvement in Iraq is disappointingly close to Bush’s misbegotten statement of “mission accomplished.” Today, Iraq represents seven years of turmoil and violence for millions of Iraqis, and counterproductive costs in life and resources for both Iraq and the United States. Obama says nothing in his speech about the devastation of Iraq’s physical and social infrastructures or the great harm we have done to Iraqi civilians – children as well. Rather, Obama’s statements bring to mind I.F. Stone’s belief that “all governments lie,” or the title of David Swanson’s recent book, War is a Lie.

The Compass of Compassion

I found these words in a book I've just finished reading by Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point. The book focuses on Safina's experiences during a year observing "nature," all sorts of birds, fish-life, and various habitats, while also discussing the mostly bad news about how humans are destroying the earth's habitats. On the last page of the book, Safina writes these inspiring and uplifting words:

"The compass of compassion asks not, 'What is good for me?' but 'What is good?' Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me, but what is right. Not "How much can we take? but "How much ought we leave?' and "How much might we give?' Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral. With each action we decide whether to sow the grapes of wrath or the seeds of peace.

"The compass of compassion suggests that very few things, each simple, are needed. We shouldn't hate people for the group they were born into, or because we hold conflicting beliefs about things that cannot be proven, seen, or measured. We can't infinitely take more from - or infinitely add more people to - a finite planet. While living in a world endowed with self-renewing energy, we can't run civilization on energy that diminishes the world. If we can get these simple things under control, I think we could be okay. Simple does not mean easy. Yet more than ever before in history, we can now understand what's needed. But nations need to act boldly and soon. Time runs short at an accelerating pace" (p 356).

The US military remains more powerful than ever

2011-03-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

Consider the larger context of US military spending. How large is the US military budget? Why is it so large? The answers to these questions help to throw some light on why the war in Afghanistan is likely to continue beyond 2014.

First, the size of the US military budget -

The overall gargantuan US military budget will most likely continue to rise in FY 2012. This will be so, even though “defense” spending is, and has been, the largest part of the discretionary federal budget (58% by some measures). And it will be so even though the US economy remains in an economic recession, creating insufficient employment opportunities, leaving millions of families in home foreclosure, amidst rising inequality and poverty and infrastructural, energy, and environmental problems that remain unattended.

Reporting for the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof notes the following: “The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html

The late Chalmers Johnson cited evidence to attest that the US is an empire of military bases. In his last book, Dismantling the Empire (2010), Johnson wrote:

“According to the Defense Department’s Base Structure Report for fiscal year 2009, the Pentagon owned or rented 716 overseas based and another 4,863 in the United States and its territories….Johnson goes on to point out that “the 2009 edition failed to mention any garrisons in the Iraq and Afghan war zones, as well as any bases or facilities used in countries such as Jordan and Qatar. As of the summer of 2009, “there were still nearly three hundred US bases and outposts in Iraq, with the number set to drop to fifty or fewer by August 31, 2010….”

Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope (2010.
At the same time, the number of military bases in Afghanistan has increased. Nick Turse reports that by Feb 2010, there were 400 US and Coalition bases across Afghanistan, with an additional 300 Afghan National Army and Afghan Police bases, “most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. (See Nick Turse, “Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan,” Alternet.org, Feb 10, 2010.)

http://www.alternet.org/world/145631/totally_occupied:_700_miitary_bases_spread_across_afghanistan?page=entire

Wikipedia provides the following information: “The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150[1] countries around the world, with more than 369,000 of its 1,580,255[2] active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories.” (See Wikipedia, “United States military deployments.”)

There is a continuing debate on whether the defense budget will be marginally cut with the withdrawal of many troops from Iraq, but such a cut, if it should happen, would not significantly reduce the preponderance of overall US military resources. (See Thom Shanker and Christopher Drew’s article, “Gates Sees Crisis in Current Spending, New York Times, Feb 15, 2011).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/opinion/main6193925.shtml

But there is also evidence that the official estimates of the military budget that capture the media’s attention are lower than they actually are. Chris Hellman points this out:

“For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At $676 billion, that’s already nothing to sneeze at, but it’s just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security. Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.

“To get closer to a real figure, it’s necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away.

“Missing from the Pentagon’s budget request, for example, is an additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and producing them. That money, however, officially falls in the province of the Department of Energy. And then, don’t forget an additional $7.8 billion that the Pentagon lumps into a “miscellaneous” category—a kind of department of chump change—that is included in neither its base budget nor those war-fighting funds.”

Hellman then goes on to identify some of the missing pieces from the official and widely discussed Pentagon budget that brings the total from about $700 billion to over $1.2 trillion.

Here are just some of his examples of military-related expenditures in various non-defense categories of the budget: State Department ($8.7 billion); Homeland Security ($53.5 billion); US Intelligence ($59.1 billion); Veterans’ Programs ($129.3 billion); and Interest on the debt related to past government borrowing for military functions ($184 billion). There are other parts of the budget where military-related expenditures are unknown (that is, kept secret). On this, Hellman writes:

“To take one example, how much of NASA’s proposed $18.7 billion budget falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the Air Force’s facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of NASA technology and support? In dollar terms, we just don’t know.

“Other “known unknowns” would include portions of the State Department budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the interest on money borrowed to fund veterans’ benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even higher.”

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/03/01/the-real-us-national-security-budget
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Why is the US military budget so large?

The US leadership, in the both executive and legislative branches, appears determined to preserve the military power of the nation and keep it as a trump card to protect and advance the interests of US corporations, the chief actors in the country’s economy. As long as US dependence on foreign oil continues and increases, this will be the case. There are two other implications. Powerful forces within the US that reap benefits from large military spending want the status quo to continue. This is the military-industrial complex about which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the country in his last speech as president, on January 17, 1961. And US leaders seem persuaded that only the US has the military power to keep the world from falling into an intolerable and dangerous disorder.

Just consider one of these points, the forces within the US that serve to drive the military-industrial complex. Here are examples of these forces.

In the United States, there are many powerful groups, communities, and just ordinary citizens that support a militarized foreign policy. Why? Many parts of the US have benefited from the Iraq War financially, ideologically, and/or politically. Consider the following list of relevant items

(1) The military-industrial complex thrives on wars, however reckless, costly in resources and to people, and counterproductive they are.

(2) The President, along with too many elected officials in the U.S. Congress, advance a bipartisan, pro-war budget and agenda and have won money and votes for their campaigns..

(3) Covering up - “In 2005 and 2006 while Republicans held a majority in Congress, Democratic Congress members led by John Conyers (Mich.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) pushed hard for an investigation into the lies that had launched the aggression against Iraq. But from the time the Democrats took the majority in January 2007 up to the present moment, there has been no further mention of the matter, apart from a Senate committee’s release of its long-delayed report” (David Swanson, War Is a Lie, p. 303).

(4) The large veterans’ organizations typically defend the militarized foreign policy of the US government.

(5) Thousands of communities across the United States and in virtually all congressional districts support the government’s large military budgets, especially when they have military bases in their areas or local business with contracts to produce weapons or military-related supplies. The benefits are in employment, additional taxes, and spurs to the local economy.

(6) Burgeoning private firms/contractors prosper that provide services to the troops, security to embassies and officials, experienced former soldiers for special operations, and intelligence to the military.

(7) Millions of citizens who pride themselves on being patriotic have adopted the idea, perhaps out of fear, confusion, or the lack of information, that military force is the only way to protect America and its interests here and abroad. Here is a sad commentary on the US culture from David Swanson’s new book, War Is a Lie.

“We are more saturated with militarism than ever before. The military and its support industries eat up an increasingly larger share of the economy, providing jobs intentionally spread across all congressional districts. Military recruiters and recruitment advertising are ubiquitous. Sporting events on television welcome ‘members of the United States armed forces viewing in 177 nations around the world’ and nobody blinks. When wars begin, the government does whatever it has to do to persuade enough of the public to support the wars. Once the public turns against wars, the government just as effectively resists pressure to bring them to a swift end. Some years into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a majority of Americans told pollsters it had been a mistake to begin either of those wars. But easily manipulated majorities had supported those mistakes when they were made” (p. 10).

(8) The terror-complex. A widely held view in the United States is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were necessary to forestall and ultimately defeat international Islamic terrorism. These misbegotten goals generate fear and submissiveness in the population but also opportunities for the creation and expansion of yet more profitable and career-enhancing opportunities. Chris Hedges provides a glimpse of this in his article, “The Terror-Industrial Complex,” truthdig.com, February 8, 2010.

“It is difficult to get a fair trial in this country if the government wants to accuse you of terrorism,” said Foster. “It is difficult to get a fair trial on any types of charges. The government is allowed to tell the jury you are a terrorist before you have to put on any evidence. The fear factor that has emerged since 9/11 has permeated into the U.S. court system in a profoundly disturbing way. It embraces the idea that we can compromise core principles, for example the presumption of innocence, based on perceived threats that may or may not come to light. We, as a society, have chosen to cave on fear.”

“I spent more than a year covering al-Qaida for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. The threat posed by Islamic extremists, while real, is also wildly overblown, used to foster a climate of fear and political passivity, as well as pump billions of dollars into the hands of the military, private contractors, intelligence agencies and repressive client governments including that of Pakistan. The leader of one FBI counterterrorism squad told The New York Times that of the 5,500 terrorism-related leads its 21 agents had pursued over the past five years, just 5 percent were credible and not one had foiled an actual terrorist plot. These statistics strike me as emblematic of the entire war on terror.

“Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us.

(9) The media are too often an echo chamber of the official war narratives – Check out these two books, for example: Anthony Dimaggio, When Media Goes to War, and Norman Solomon’s War Made Easy

In his book War is a Lie, David Swanson comments on the role of the media: “The approach of the US corporate media to war coverage is to feature lots of ‘experts’ on war. By ‘experts’ they clearly mean high-ranking military officials, current or retired. But if the question is whether or not to go to war, or whether or not to continue war, or whether or not to escalate war, then why aren’t experts at peace making as relevant as experts at war making? In fact, why aren’t they more relevant, given our supposed preference for peace, its legality, and the ongoing pretense of civilian control over our military? The military can offer expertise on how to start and fight a way, but should it be considered to have any authority on whether to start a war?” (p. 252).

(10) Think tanks (some) provide rationales for war. Derek Leebaert provides the following examples in his book Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.

“Think tankers who double as advisers to the military – including Frederick Kagan and his spouse, Kimberly Kagan, who runs a new organization, ‘the Institute for the Study of War’ – wrote an op-ed…stating, ‘There is no doubt that we can succeed against the much weaker foes,’ comparing the Afghan insurgents dismissively to those in Iraq. Brookings expert Michael O’Hanlon and participated from the CSIS, Brookings, and the AEI to urge ‘significant escalation’ as they unanimously insisted ‘there is no alternative to victory’” (p. 243).
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What’s the point?

The US military establishment and its extensions have distorted our economy, politics, and cultural. A majority of Americans who have been recently polled indicate that they would like to see an end to the Afghanistan war. But this is not an issue that was high on the list of priorities indicated in other polls or why they voted as they did in 2010.

Perhaps the economic troubles of many Americans will in time be reflected in elections and in the White House and US Congress. However, the 2010 elections moved in the opposite direction, toward the right-wing of the Republican Party. This is a political reality so that now the Congress has become even more inclined toward a strong military. (It remains to be seen whether the Tea Party changes this reality.) One big part of the problem politically is that corporations and the rich are now legally able to pour more money into elections and lobbying than ever in memory.

In the meantime, the peace and anti-war groups remain relatively small. This is certainly true, when one compares the size of such groups before the Iraq War with what we have today. But even then the anti-war movement was unable to stop the US invasion of Iraq. Compare today with a letter I wrote back in February of 2003.

An Anti-War Movement With Many Voices
Bob Sheak
February 12, 2003

The peace/anti-war movement in the U.S. and across the world is large and diversified in the types of people and organizations involved and the religious and ideological views held by activists. Whatever differences there are, they are united by their opposition to a needless and costly war on Iraq and their support for the continuation of the inspections process.

An estimated 100,000 turned out for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last October, and at least twice as many showed up in January, with estimates ranging up to 500,000. Regardless of the exact number, the January rally was the largest anti-war demonstration in D.C. since the Vietnam era. At the same time, tens of thousands marched in San Francisco and towns of all sizes across the country and in some 37 other countries. On February 9th in Jakarta, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, up to a hundred thousand Indonesians staged a peaceful protest against a possible attack on Iraq. As of Friday, February 7th, 72 cities in the U.S. has passed resolutions or signed letters in opposition to an invasion of Iraq and 85 others (including Athens) had campaigns to do so.

The peace/anti-war movement includes traditional peace groups; student, global justice and antiracist activists; mainstream labor, environmental, civil rights and women's organizations. Over a hundred celebrities announced their opposition to the war on December 10 through the new Win Without War coalition. More than 750,000 people have joined online activist group MoveOn.org, which supports continued inspections and is airing television ads to that effect. Thirty-five hundred anti-war poems have been submitted to http://www.poetsagainstwar.org/. Z Magazine printed the e-mail addresses of 221 “peace” groups in its February issue. Even several prominent Republican businessmen took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal that told Bush: "The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed, but you must find a better way to do it."

Almost all of the major faiths have spoken out against war. The National Council of Churches, which represents 36 denominations and 140,000 local congregations, has taken a strong stand against an invasion of Iraq and has organized “A Season for Peacemaking.” And on February 9th, Pope John Paul II, the head of the Catholic Church with hundreds of millions of members in the U.S. and across the globe, addressed pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square in Rome and prayed for "an act from on high" to prevent a war against Iraq. Writing from Rome for online World News, Richard Owen writes: “The ageing pontiff rebuffed attempts by the Bush Administration to persuade him that impending military action against Baghdad amounted to a Christian ‘just war’… [and] also gave his backing to the new Franco-German plan to resolve the Iraq crisis through beefed-up weapons inspections and the deployment of UN troops.”

One implication of this growing peace/anti-war movement is that there is a large and growing number of Americans, leaders from many institutional sectors here and abroad, and others around the world who have not been convinced by the enormous and relentless efforts of the Bush Administration to rally them to support a preemptive “war” against Iraq that will have catastrophic human consequences.

Last word: The challenge appears unceasing....

Afghanistan - much that's going wrong

2011-02-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

Surely, we cannot go on supporting the war in Afghanistan when there is so much that is going wrong for the US/NATO occupation of the country, so many civilian and military casualties, so much poverty and so little progress for most of the Afghan people, so much corruption in the Afghan government and among US contractors, so much waste of US resources in a war that seems to chase its own tail.
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Even Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seems discouraged about US prospects in Afghanistan, as reported as follows by Thom Shanker for the New York Times (Feb. 25, 2011).

“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim.

‘In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,’ Mr. Gates told an assembly of Army cadets here.”
Secretary Gates did not mean to suggest that such wars are out of the question, but only that they should be based less on ground forces and more on “air and sea” power – and perhaps, implicitly, on pilotless drones and other mechanized warfare. Still, the Secretary and other leaders must be weighed down by the US devastation sheer price of it all caused by their policies in Iraq and now Afghanistan, with at the moment no end in sight. Where is the “democracy” and progress they promised, as all US leaders have done to justify invasions and wars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/26gates.html
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Ordinary Americans have caught this dark and dismal mood, as reflected in public opinion polls anyway. There is an overall trend in the news coverage of the Afghanistan War among people in the US who are questioned by pollsters. Those responding to unfavorable choices about the war are growing in number while the number of those responding favorably to US involvement in Afghanistan is falling. You can see the results of polls going back in some cases to 2007 or earlier at Polling Report.com. - Afghanistan. Support for the war in Afghanistan is declining among US citizens. Not good news for US Afghan policymakers. Here are examples of responses from two recent polls.

A CBS News Poll conducted from February 11-14, 2011 and based on 1,031 interviews found that 54 percent of the respondents indicate that the US “should…not be involved in Afghanistan now.” Only 37 percent agreed with the other option that “the US is doing the right thing. Nine percent were “unsure.” In the same CBS News Poll, the pattern held up in the responses to another question. The question, “What is your impression of how the war in Afghanistan is going for the US right now,” 55% chose “somewhat badly” (36%) or “very badly” (19%) compared to 36% who chose “somewhat well” (33%) or “very well” (3%).

A poll of 1,012 people by CNN/Opinion Research found 58 percent of the respondents who “oppose the US War in Afghanistan,” and a lesser percentage of 40% who “favor the US war in Afghanistan.”
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A similar climate of opinion seems to hold among Afghans. The Huffington Post (Dec. 6, 2010) titles an article “Afghanistan Poll: Afghans Lose Confidence in US and NATO Forces. The poll, “based on face-to-face interviews with a random sample of nearly 1,700 Afghan adults in all 34 of the country’s provinces,” was “conducted from Oct. 29-Nov. 13 [2010] by ABC News, the BBC, ARD German TV and the Washington Post.” Here are two relevant quotes from the article.
“Monday's survey also showed Afghans are losing confidence in the United States and NATO to provide security in their country, and they are more willing to see a negotiated settlement with the Taliban than they were last year.

“Just 36 percent of those polled expressed confidence in the U.S. and NATO to bring stability, down by 12 percentage points from last year and down by 31 percentage points since 2006. The survey also said 73 percent favor a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, up by 13 percentage points since 2007.”
---------------

While Secretary of Defense Gates seems demoralized, you can say that at least he seems guided by a certain rationality about the present and future of warfare. The same cannot be said of an outburst by General Patraeus. On Antiwar.com (Feb 21, 2001), Jason Ditz captures what happened, and it appears to be a sudden loss of concentration or an expression of pent-up rage on the part of the general. Who knows? The title of Ditz’ article is “Petraeus Accuses Afghan Parents of Burning Kids to Make US Look Bad. Here is some of what Ditz penned:

“One would think that the effort to downplay the killings of as many as 64 civilians, including a large number of children, would be enough to spark considerable anti-US outrage, but apparently Gen. David Petraeus saw an opportunity to make things even worse, and took it.
“In a closed door meeting aimed at explaining why they had killed so many civilians, Gen. Petraeus actually accused parents in the region of burning their own children in an attempt to raise the death count and make the US look bad.
[….]

“The US has a long history of making up ridiculous hypotheticals that might explain away massive civilian death tolls, including the May 2009 Farah Province massacre, in which the US initially claimed the Taliban had “pre-killed” a large number of civilians and stored them in buildings before tricking the US into bombing them, scattering the bodies. They later admitted the claim was entirely made up.

“….This appears, however, to be the first time they actually accused parents of killing their children just to make the US occupation look bad.”
---------------

The bad news onslaught is tragically reflected in other recent new items. Consider just five recent sources worth looking up.

#1 - The Independent. Uk posted on their website the following AP news item that “Afghan security worst for 10 years, says UN.” The post, from Feb 24, 2011, reports, ‘Security in the country is at its lowest level for a decade and two-fifths of the country is off-limits,’ according to “Robert Watkins, a Canadian diplomat and the UN's deputy special representative in Afghanistan.” Watkins is also quoted as saying, the occupation is‘at its lowest point since the departure of the Taliban" following the 2001 invasion.’”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-security-worst-for-10-years-says-un-2223699.html
---------------

#2 – C.J. Civers, Alissa J. Rubin, and Wesley Morgan write about “US Pulling Back in Afghan Valley It Called Vital to War,” Feb 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/world/asia/25afghanistan.html
---------------

#3 – Slobodan Lekic, “NATO: Afghan [troop] attrition remains stubbornly high,” Yahoo News, Feb 23, 2011.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110223/ap_on_re_en/eu_nato_afghan_training
---------------

#4 – Emma Graham-Harrison, “NATO’s Afghan night raids come with high civilian cost.”
http://ca.reuters.com/articles/topNews/idCATRE71N15U20110224
---------------

#5 – John Donnelly, “Pentagon Contracts: No bid required,” Congress.org, Feb 15, 2011
http://www.congress.org/new/2011/02/15/pentagon_contracts_no_bids_required

Afghanistan - cut funding, reduce violence

2011-02-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

The decade-long US/NATO war on and occupation of Afghanistan is unrelentingly costly, in human terms, to US taxpayers and US debt, in Afghan and contractor corruption, in the fear and hatred generated by foreign occupation among ordinary Afghan people, and, to end this incomplete list, the squandering of money on this futile war when there is so much economic distress in Afghanistan and the US.

The Republicans in the US House and Senate want to reduce government spending on non-military discretionary programs by $100 billion in the next fiscal year. Tom Engelhardt demurs. The savings should more reasonably come from the military side of the budget proposals. Given the less-than-rational policies justifying the Afghanistan war/occupation, we should, Engelhardt argues, look at the military spending proposals on the budget. Here is just one of Engelhardt’s ideas. He writes in his Feb. 17, 2011, article on Antiwar.com that we could easily cut a $100 billion or more from the spending side of the government budget by bringing the troops home from Afghanistan.
---------------

Engelhardt - Ending the war in Afghanistan and save over $100 billion the first year

[….]
“Which reminds me: Didn’t I mention Afghanistan?

“If so, how fortunate, because there’s a perfectly obvious path toward that Republican goal of $100 billion. If we were to embark on it, there would be even more cuts to follow and — believe it or not — they wouldn’t be all that painful, provided we did one small thing: change our thinking about making war.

“After all, according to the Pentagon, the cost of the Afghan War in 2012 will be almost $300 million a day or, for all 365 of them, $107.3 billion. Like anything having to do with American war-fighting, however, such figures regularly turn out to be undercounts. Other estimates for our yearly war costs there go as high as $120-$160 billion.

“And let’s face it, it’s a war worth ending fast. Almost a decade after the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. military is still fruitlessly engaged in possibly the stupidest frontier war in our history, thousands of miles from home in the backlands of the planet.
[….]

There’s genuine money to be slashed simply by bringing the troops home….
[….]

URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/02/17/cutting-100-billion-easy/
---------------

Sadly the war is likely to continue beyond 2011 or 2014. There is no definitive end in sight for this fruitless endeavor. And it is likely to get worse by the violence it generates in the meantime.
---------------

Slobodan Lekic learns that the top US general in Afghanistan sees intensified fighting in 2011. Reporting for the Associated Press (2-9-11), Lekic writes that “General Patraeus predicts intensified fighting in 2011.” Lekic continues:

“ The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warned [on NATO TV] that combat will likely escalate during the spring thaw as Taliban insurgents try to return to areas cleared by the international forces during the past several months.
[….]

“Last year's surge boosted the international force to about 150,000 troops. NATO and President Hamid Karzai hope to have more than 300,000 Afghan army and police in action by next autumn facing a much smaller organized insurgent force.
[….]

“Last year was the deadliest of the nearly decade-long war for international troops, with more than 700 killed. This compares to about 500 in 2009, previously the worst year of the war. Record numbers of insurgents and civilians also have been killed.
[….]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110209/ap_re_eu/eu_nato_patraeus

---------------

Jason Ditz reports on on Antiwar.com (Feb 16, 2011) that Admiral Michael Mullen also anticipates increases violence in Afghanistan in 2011 – i.e., agreement among top brass that violence in Afghan will worsen in 2011

….today Admiral Michael Mullen informed Congress that 2011 will be an even more violent year in Afghanistan than the record 2010 was.

“’The fighting will be tough and often costly,’” Mullen informed the committee in a prepared statement, which added that the violence to come would be “’greater than last year,’” which may sound familiar, because violence in Afghanistan has gotten worse year after year, and record tolls always find a way to be topped.”
[….]

URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/16/mullen-informs-congress-afghan-violence-to-worsen-in-2011/
---------------

The anticipated increase in violence is predictably going to result in increase deaths and injuries, physical and psychological, both to civilians and to combatants. Derrick Crowe reports in the Huffington Post (Feb 2, 2011) that “2010 was the worst year for civilian deaths of the Afghanistan War.” Put it together. If last year was the worst year in this respect, and if the top military brass predicts that violence will rise in 2011, then 2011 will become the worst year for civilian deaths in this battered country of Afghanistan. The surge in carnage will continue to escalate, we are forewarned.
------------

Derrick Crowe:
“Last year was the worst year for civilian deaths in the war so far, and irregular armed groups backed by the U.S. and by the Afghan government are preying on the population while recruiting and abusing children. Go team.
[….]
“Here's the latest assessment from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (.PDF):

“Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010: the combined numbers of Afghan and foreign forces surpassed 350,000; security incidents mounted to over 100 per week; more fighters from all warring side were killed; and the number of civilian people killed, wounded and displaced hit record levels.

“...From 1 January to 31 December 2010, at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan. This means everyday 6-7 noncombatants were killed and 8-9 were wounded in the war.

“...In addition to civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of people were affected in various ways by the intensified armed violence in Afghanistan in 2010. Tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes or deprived of healthcare and education services and livelihood opportunities due to the continuation of war in their home areas.

“Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are widely considered as the most lethal tools which killed over 690 civilians in 2010. However, as you will read in this report, there is virtually no information about the use of cluster munitions by US/NATO forces. Despite Afghanistan's accession to the international Anti-Cluster Bomb Treaty in 2008, the US military has allegedly maintained stockpiles of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.

“A second key issue highlighted in this report is the emergence of the irregular armed groups in parts of Afghanistan which are backed by the Afghan Government and its foreign allies. These groups have been deplored as criminal and predatory by many Afghans and have already been accused of severe human rights violations such as child recruitment and sexual abuse.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/2010-worst-year-for-civil_b_817308.html
---------------

There are alternatives to the US/NATO war on occupation of Afghanistan. Tom Engelhardt offers sound advice in his article cited earlier. The Afghanistan Study Group provides an authoritative and comprehensive report in “A New Way Forward: Rethinking US Strategy in Afghanistan.” Check it out at:

http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/

Also think about joining the anti-war demonstration in New York City on Saturday, April 9, 2011.

Corruption permeates Afghanistan

2011-02-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

In my last post, February 6, 2011, I commented on and referred to articles that document how tens of billions of dollars in US and UK development funds have been squandered or just vanished in a maze of official and unofficial corruption in Afghanistan. The corruption doesn’t stop with the misuse of “development” funds. Indeed, Afghanistan is rated by Transparency International in their “Corruption Perceptions Index 2010” as the second most corrupt country in a list of 178 countries. Afghanistan is tied with Myanmar for second, just ahead of Somalia, viewed as the most corrupt, and just below Iraq the fourth most corrupt country.

When corruption is widespread and explicitly or implicitly sanctioned by powerful governing groups in a society, it follows that there is little true “democracy.” Corruption requires secrecy among networks of beneficiaries who nefariously steal or divert the people’s taxes, foreign aid, and some of the profits from foreign investment into their own pockets or the pockets of their cronies instead of into programs that are publicly beneficial. Corruption may also involve bureaucrats and police who compel people to pay bribes for services that in law or by convention are considered rights. It may involve kickbacks from foreign or domestic companies to government officials that want government contracts. It may involve the income and profits that come from the production and distribution of illegal drugs, which is particularly true of Afghanistan. Corruption in it various manifestations is inherently anti-democratic, self-serving, favors inequality, works against sustainable development, and requires secrecy and authoritarian and/or plutocratic government to thrive.
Consider some examples of the evidence.
---------------
A year ago, Daniel Schulman examined a UN study on drugs and bribery in Afghanistan in an article for the Mother Jones magazine. His article refers to the massive costs of bribes, kickbacks, and the opium trade. [See full citation after quotes.]

“Earlier this month [Jan 2011], Afghan President Hamid Karzai [1] fought back against allegations of pervasive graft [2] within his government, telling [3] Al Jazeera that ‘the Western media has blown corruption totally out of all proportion in Afghanistan.’

“Perhaps Karzai should have a conversation with Antonio Maria Costa, the United Nations' drug and crime czar. His office released a report [4]on Tuesday concluding that in the past year Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes and kickbacks—the equivalent of 23 percent of the country's gross domestic product. The income generated by corruption is exceeded only by the booming opium trade [5], which brings in an estimated $2.8 billion annually. ‘In other words, this is shocking, drugs and bribes are the two largest income generators in Afghanistan,’ writes Costa, who heads the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in the preface of the study.
The report, based on interviews with 7,600 Afghans, is yet another indicator that any US policy on Afghanistan that is predicated on cooperation with the government is threatened by endemic graft. As it stands, writes Costa, ‘It is almost impossible to obtain a public service in Afghanistan without greasing a palm: bribing authorities is a way of life.’

“The average payoff, according to UNODC, was $159—a modest sum in Western terms, but a massive expenditure in a country with a per-capita income of $425. This, Costa says, amounts to a ‘crippling tax on people who are already among the world's poorest.’ And he notes that the massive influx of aid funding coupled with soaring drug revenues ‘have created a new cast [sic] of rich and powerful individuals who operate outside the traditional power/tribal structures and bid the cost of favours and loyalty to levels not compatible with the under-developed nature of the country.’

“According to the study, 59 percent of Afghans identified corruption as their biggest concern—more worrisome even than the deteriorating security situation and widespread unemployment.
[….]

“….Presently, says Costa, members of the Afghan government are not doing their part to fight graft. That's not entirely surprising, since Afghan officials—on both the local and national level—appear to be the ones profiting most handsomely from bribes and kickbacks.”
Source: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/corruption-afghanistan-its-even-worse-you-think#
---------------
Since last summer, there have been spates of articles focused on an particularly egregious example of corruption, namely, the people who stole from billions from Da Kabul Bank, the state bank, and caused it to collapse.

CORRUPTION AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY AND THE GOVERNMENT MEAN THAT OUR SOLDIERS ARE DYING FOR A LOST CAUSE

On his blog Informed Comment (Sept, 3, 2010), the title of Juan Cole’s article reflects the thrust of his analysis - “Collapse of Kabul Banks Points to Fatal Corruption of Karzai Government.” I quote from the article.

“I [Juan Cole] write in anger. Not blind rage, mind you. A cool, searing, steady anger. I think it is a righteous anger. It is not consequential, but it is my reality. I am angry about the 1,172 US troops dead in the Afghanistan War, and all the other brave NATO and Afghan soldiers who gave their lives for a new Afghanistan. Because they haven’t gotten a new Afghanistan. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for a ponzi scheme masquerading as a reformist government. And, as usual, you and I may well get stuck with the bill for the economic damage done by the fraud.

“The house of cards that is the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul may be falling before our eyes, as vast, globe-spanning webs of corruption, formerly hidden in shadows, have suddenly had a spotlight thrown on them. The crisis raises the severest questions about whether the Obama administration can plausibly hope to stand up a stable government in Afghanistan before US troops depart.

“As with the second phase of the Great Depression in the United States, the crisis begins with a run on Da Kabul Bank. Depositors took out $85 million on Wednesday, after a damning story appeared in the Washington Post. They took out another $70 million on Thursday. The bank, which owes $300 million, may now have as little as $120 million left in the kitty, though it had once been worth over a billion. But the problem is not just a run on one bank. Can Afghanistan’s whole financial system and economy emerge unscathed?

“Pajhwok News Service reports,

‘The immediate concern was that news of the bank’s financial irregularities, already spreading through the capital, would prompt a run on the bank itself and that the panic would spread to other financial institutions. Bank deposits in Afghanistan are not guaranteed by the central government, officials here said. “This could be catastrophic for the country,” a senior Afghan banking official said. “The next few days are critical. I am worried.” ‘
[….]

“The story begins with Sherkhan Farnood, a financier who founded Da Kabul Bank after the fall of the Taliban. Over the years he appears to have used the institution for patronage for politicians and their families. Farnood gave millions to the presidential campaign of Hamid Karzai last summer, a campaign that Karzai was accused of only winning through substantial ballot fraud. (Hint: a vote wouldn’t cost much to buy in Afghanistan, and ‘millions’ would buy a lot). The other top executive at the bank, Khalilu’llah Frozi, was a campaign adviser to Karzai. Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud has a 9% share in the bank.
[….]

“Farnood often gave out loans without proper collateral or other formalities. He loaned $100 million to Haseen Fahim, the brother of Marshal Mohammad Fahim (an old-time Northern Alliance warlord whom Karzai brought back into government as his vice-presidential running mate in summer of 2009). Haseen Fahim has substantial investments in Afghanistan’s small natural gas sector.

Farnood also apparently loaned himself $140 million to invest in real estate in Dubai, including in villas on the world islands off Jumeirah.
[….]

With the world economic downturn and real estate crash of 2008-2009, the Dubai world project largely fell apart, with investors going bankrupt in droves.
[….]

“So Farnood’s $140 million investment was suddenly not worth anything at all, and his bank began spiraling down. The details of his other bad investments have not yet emerged. The bank went from having over $1 billion in capital to now having only $120 million and owing $300 million.

“President Hamid Karzai is notorious for running interference for his corrupt cronies, and that Farnood and Frozi were out of control appears to have been known for some time but nothing was allowed to be done about it. The two have now been forced out, but the question is whether it is in time to save not only the bank (doubtful) but also the entire Afghan financial system, rebuilt after the fall of the Taliban.

“The Karzai government is corrupt and rotten to the core. Not a single US soldier should die to prop it up. The lie that we are fighting “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan needs to be exposed. The US and NATO are fighting four or five groups of Pashtun insurgents, some of them until fairly recently US allies. The goal of the fighting is to keep the Karzai government from falling to the guerrillas and to train up an army and police force that could go on defending Kabul. The Afghanistan National Army from all accounts has poor morale. No wonder. What Afghan soldier
[….]

http://www.juancole.com/2010/09/collapse-of-kabul-bank-points-to-terminal-corruption-of-karzai-government.html
---------------
STEAL WHAT YOU CAN BECAUSE THE COUNTRY DOES NOT HAVE A FUTURE

Julius Cavendish provides an updated report (Feb 2, 2011) on the bank failure in an article for The Independent titled “Afghan elite 'plundered $900m' from leading bank.”

“A coterie of well-connected Afghan businessmen and politicians may have plundered as much as $900m from the country's biggest commercial bank, three times the amount of earlier estimates, and the equivalent of about 7 per cent of Afghanistan's total gross domestic product.

“Kabul Bank's funds were treated like personal accounts, it is claimed by several well-known members of Afghan society. Mahmoud Karzai, a brother of the Afghan President and prominent shareholder in Kabul Bank, told The New York Times that the bank's former chairman lent himself about $98m (£62m) to buy one of Afghanistan's airlines, and then used deposits to subsidise the carrier in an attempt to drive rivals out of business. Yet so difficult has the hunt for the missing millions become that the very same man, Sherkhan Farnood, had been brought in to help trace the missing cash.

“Officials say the value of questionable outstanding loans written by the bank is far greater than originally thought – and auditors pouring over the lender's books think up to $800m is potentially unrecoverable.

“The crisis is so severe – with fears that a run on the embattled Kabul Bank could lead to its collapse – that Afghanistan's central bank chief, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, was forced yesterday to deny reports that the embattled lender was close to failure.
[….]

“The case is acutely embarrassing both for President Hamid Karzai, whose tenure has seen Afghanistan turn into a mafia state, and the Obama administration, which has adopted a policy of ignoring institutionalised corruption after several bitter diplomatic spats with Mr Karzai got it nowhere.

“In an account of goings-on at Kabul Bank that is devastating in its detail, the New Yorker magazine records how ‘Kabul Bank's largesse included members of parliament and almost anyone whose silence would allow bank executives to embark on a spree of buying, lending and looting.

"In addition, some former and current Afghan officials say, Kabul Bank became an unofficial arm of the Karzai government, bribing parliamentarians in order to secure votes for its legislative agenda,’ it reports.

"Dozens of Afghan leaders and businessmen... collectively, accepted tens of millions of dollars in gifts and bribes – some sources say as much as a hundred million dollars – from executives at Kabul Bank."
[….]

“American investigators say many of Mr Karzai's closest advisers, some with regulatory responsibilities over the Afghan financial system, are implicated in the scandal.
[….]

“It's a meticulous account of the workings of kleptocracy, but from a Western perspective perhaps the most terrifying part of the tale is the motive. The businessmen, politicians and officials – the cream of Afghan society – are milking Afghanistan for all they can. Why? Because they don't believe their country has a future.”

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-elite-plundered-900m-from-leading-bank-2200176.html#
---------------
Another source: Dexter Filkins, “The Afghan Bank Heist,” The New Yorker, Feb 14, 2011 – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all

Corruption and Waste in developmental funds going to Afghanistan

2011-02-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

The widespread problem of official and unofficial corruption in Afghanistan is not a new topic. But it is an ongoing problem that has not been fixed or even reduced according to investigative reports over the past year or so. In my old New World Dictionary, “corruption” is defined in a number of ways. For example, it is defined as “evil or wicked behavior; depravity…bribery or similar dishonest dealings….”

Specifically, in the context of the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan, corruption may be a way to divert money from its intended purpose for personal gain or influence. Or, in violation of a contract, it may involve cost cutting measures that produce shoddy or unfinished projects. It may entail the exploitation of workers, often brought in from other countries. Often it involves bribes or payoffs to government officials or police.

American corporations that receive big contracts from the US government are often at the center of corrupt dealings, subcontracting much of the work to Afghan or other national enterprises, suspected of putting profits over the expected work. The same is true when the Afghan government receives assistance from the US or the UK. Keep some and pass the rest on.
In many cases, the problem of corruption results in poor planning or inadequate vetting of contractors or sub-contractors by the funding source. Political favoritism is a factor. Too often little or none of the contracted work being done is up to even minimal standards. And through the process, local leaders or communities are not given the opportunity to participate.

The results of corruption are to enrich a few, undermine development projects, alienate Afghans from the government and its representatives, and keep too many Afghan citizens and their children, many of them dirt poor, from gaining opportunities that were intended for them – like jobs, a working infrastructure, effective schools, access to health care, housing, and a government that represents their interests and provides them with security in their lives and communities.

To illustrate some of these points, I draw on five articles and organize them chronologically, with the first article reported at an earlier date than the next ones, and so on. The thrust of the articles is that corruption and waste continue to be massive problems in Afghanistan.
---------------

ARTICLE #1: “The report reveals that in 2006-07, more than half of the department’s large projects, in which millions of pounds were invested, were deemed likely to fail.”

Deborah Haynes, Defense Correspondent for RAWA (Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association) provides an of corruption in an article titled “Public millions fail to provide wells, schools and clinics in Afghanistan. [You can see the URL at the end of the article.]

Haynes’ article, reported May 22, 2009, focuses on British funded projects carried out in Afghanistan in 2004-2007 and an assessment of these projects by the Department for International Development.

“Millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money have been wasted on failed reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, according to an internal assessment by the Department for International Development.

“An evaluation by independent consultants criticized the department’s approach to planning, risk management and staffing, and said poor co-ordination with the rest of Whitehall meant that the department was slow to shift strategy as the military effort moved to counter-insurgency.

“The report reveals that in 2006-07, more than half of the department’s large projects, in which millions of pounds were invested, were deemed likely to fail, excluding money put into a fund run by the World Bank. Only a quarter of state building projects were rated successful in 2006, with 4.5 per cent of them rated value for money.

“Among the failed projects singled out in the Country Programme Evaluation is the Afghanistan Stabilisation Fund, designed to ‘establish basic security and good governance in the district and provinces of Afghanistan’. This was begun in 2004 with a £20 million payment to the Afghan Government but ended three years later with “little evidence of tangible benefit’.

“The department’s own review in 2005 warned of ‘potentially catastrophic consequences’ if weaknesses in the programme were not corrected. Beset by poor planning, a lack of transparency and failed delivery, it was abandoned in March 2007. Only 639 people received training. Commentators criticised the “disastrous” project.

“In another programme in Helmand, the department paid for 300 wells to be dug in an area prone to drought, without carrying out a geological survey. Some of the wells have since run dry as the water table retreated. The report finds that the department’s risk assessment ignored the absence of the rule of law and corruption in the region.

“A survey of Afghan opinion in Helmand found local residents complaining about poor construction, a lack of monitoring and unhappiness with the role of interpreters, while the department rated its own projects there a success. It took until late 2007 for the department to recruit a conflict adviser even though British troops started operating in Helmand in 2006.
Staffing levels in Kabul were described as ‘wholly unrealistic’. Until 2006 the development department attempted to run its programmes with only six non-Afghan staff in Kabul.
[….]

“Only one person is overseeing a massive, $404 million Afghan reconstruction contract -- and is thousands of miles away in Maryland, auditors say. The contract's supervising officer in Maryland hired someone else to work in Afghanistan, but that person didn't have much experience and wasn't able to visit many of the actual work sites, the audit said.”
[….]

“Some projects were a success, including a £20 million initiative to give small loans to the poor and an £18 million programme to build and repair roads, schools and clinics. By 2007 the department’s portfolio in Afghanistan contained 58 projects with a value of about £520 million, including £317 million for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, administered by the World Bank.
[….]

http://www.rawa/org/temp/runews/2009/05/22/public-millions-fail-to-provide-wells-schools-and-clinics-in-afghanistan.html
Read more: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/05/22/public-millions-fail-to-provide-wells-schools-and-clinics-in-afghanistan.html#ixzz1D6OaqfnN
---------------

ARTICLE #2: American taxpayers lose when billions of dollars in development funds from US to Afghanistan wasted

Sara A. Carter, “Commission tracks billions of contracting dollars wasted in Afghanistan, The Washington Examiner, August 23, 2010.

“American taxpayers have picked up the tab for billions of dollars worth of shoddy schools, phantom health care clinics and government buildings abandoned before completion in Afghanistan, according to members of a U.S. team that arrived in Kabul on Monday to document the waste and fraud.

“The Commission on Wartime Contracting will look into charges ranging from massive contracting fraud to abandoned foreign laborers on U.S. military installations that have left American taxpayers ripped off and the people of Afghanistan disappointed by broken promises.

“Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut who co-chairs the commission, said the allegations warrant a full investigation and that the scams involving foreign workers are presenting security risks on the bases as well as human rights abuses.

"’We are looking into cases of some contractors or outright scam artists who charge people from other countries to fly them to supposed jobs in Dubai but instead dump them with no jobs or documents on airbases in Afghanistan. That's a human-rights abuse that cannot be tolerated,’ said Shays, who heads a four-man team.

“Foreign workers -- many from the Philippines -- paid up to $2,000 dollars to contracting companies for airfare and housing "only to be left alone on the bases without identification and no way home," said one official who asked not to be named.

"’The bigger problem is that we don't know who they are but they are inside our installations without identification or jobs, and this presents a security risk for the troops on base, civilians, as well as the innocent victims of the scams," the official said.

“The commission, which will issue a semi-annual report in December to Congress and a final report next July as the administration begins a troop draw-down from Afghanistan, is investigating a host of other problems.

“Abandoned and substandard school projects, unfinished government buildings and health care facilities without management staffs are among the reported failures being reviewed by the commission.
[….]

“Other projects paid for by American taxpayers that will be examined by the commissioners include military bases, power plants, office buildings, fuel storage, schools and training centers for Afghan security forces. Many times these projects are abandoned before completion or the supplies needed to sustain their operations never arrive.

“Examples are evident throughout Afghanistan. Last October, in the small village of Hutal, American soldiers set out to get school supplies from local contractors in Kandahar. Money was made available, the supplier was contacted and the village elders were promised that the thousands of dollars in educational materials would arrive in three weeks. The supplies never arrived. It is uncertain how much money was lost on the project.
[….]

"Construction contracting in a war zone half a world away involves real challenges on cost, quality, timeliness, suitability and sustainability," commission co-chair Michael Thibault said.

‘The government needs a clearer view on the way these projects are planned, contracted and supervised. We often don't know how many people are working on U.S. bases, whether prime contractors are effectively managing their subcontractors, whether employee vetting and access control are adequate and whether Afghans can sustain projects like the $300 million Kabul power plant after U.S. personnel leave.’”

Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner's national security correspondent. She can be reached at scarter@washingtonexaminer.com.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/commission-tracks-billions-contracting-dollars-wasted-afghanistan
---------------

ARTICLE #3 – Billions contracted with US corporations for “development” projects in Afghanistan unaccounted for and open up massive opportunities for corruption.

Iman Hasan, “Afghans point finger at US: Who’s corrupt now?” The Express Tribune with the International Tribune, November 2010.

“Many Afghans, from government officials and parliamentarians to the common man are disgruntled with the US officials relentlessly accusing them of being corrupt – while ignoring their own government’s fraud and misappropriations in the $56 billion development budget approved by the Congress for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Afghans deem US responsible for corrupting their society.

“For Obama’s administration, ‘corruption warnings’ are a new blackmail tool to use against the Karzai government. There has been constant rhetoric to ‘eradicate corruption’ and ‘stop misusing US tax payers’ money,’ without realising that only 20% of the allocated funds are at the disposal of the Afghan government while 80% are utilised by the US Department of State, Defence and USAID. These three departments rely extensively on private contractors for the implementation of various projects, ranging from reconstruction of Afghanistan, eradicating drugs, training of Afghan security forces and officials and providing security to Nato supply convoys.

“Since 2001, the US congress has appropriated nearly $56 billion for the reconstruction funds of Afghanistan, which cannot be tracked down. It has either been wasted, stolen or abused.
Missing records

“There is absolutely no record of the amount utilised from 2001 to 2006 except for the vague documentation of $17.7 billion spent during the financial year 2007 – 2009, which only identifies the 7000 contractors hired to implement the projects – but does not evaluate the projects. Therefore, there is no guarantee if the US tax payers’ money amounting to $56 billion is fairly spent or abused.

“Bush’s government after eight years of engagement in Afghanistan established the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in 2008 ‘to conduct independent and objective audits, inspections, and investigations on the use of taxpayer dollars and related funds’.

“Even the Office of the Special Inspector General is unable to track down the money spent during 2001 to 2006. It recently released a report on the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ of $17.7 billion (spent during the financial year 2007 – 2009) of the total reconstruction fund of $56 billion.

“The report is essentially a document holding the US responsible for the corruption in Afghanistan. ‘The large US investment in Afghanistan remains at risk of being wasted or subject to waste, fraud and abuse,’ reads the document.

Who benefits from America’s wars?

“65 per cent of the $17.7 billion has been channelled through the Department of Defence, which hired largely those companies who are essentially part of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). These huge corporations depend mostly or entirely on the Pentagon for their profits and have hugely benefited from the US wars.
[….]

“Some of the largest defense contractors belonging to the Military Industrial Complex hired by the Defence Department, for Afghanistan are DynCorp, Black Water (Xe Services), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Louis Berger and Bearing Pont.
[….]

“Besides the Military Industrial Complex, there is also the intelligence complex which has been playing a greater role in corrupting the Afghan society since 2001, whose billions of dollars of expenditure has never been accounted for.

“The intelligence complex’s profligate distribution of boxes and suitcases of cash amongst the different segments of Afghan society – Afghan media, NGOs and allegedly government officials – has also encouraged other countries. India is one of the countries which has taken a leaf out of the CIA’s book.
[….]

Lack of transparency

“This is still not the complete picture of US corruption and lack of oversight of reconstruction funds – meant for achieving long term goals in Afghanistan. There is no transparency even in the salary support provided to the Afghan government employees and technical advisors since 2002. The US government is unable to determine the amount it has been paying, the identity and the total number of recipients. Since the number and identity of the recipients is not clear the salaries can go to anyone in anyone’s name.
[….]

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/2955/afghans-point-finger-at-us-whos-corrupt-now
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ARTICLE #4: Another report on the missing billions of US taxpayer development funds for Afghanistan

Michael Tennant, “Afghanistan Reconstruction: Billions Spent, But No One Knows Just How,” New American, Dec. 29, 2010

[….]

“In Iraq, for example, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found over $5 billion had been wasted on various projects, including hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects such as a $40 million prison, a $5.7 million convention center, and a roughly $100 million wastewater treatment plant. In addition, the special inspector general discovered that the Pentagon could not account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraqi funds set aside for reconstruction.“To no one’s great surprise, the situation in Afghanistan, site of another undeclared U.S. war, is no better. David Francis of the Fiscal Times reports:

'In its bid to win the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s teeming population, the United States has spent more than $55 billion to rebuild and bolster the war-ravaged country. That money was meant to cover everything from the construction of government buildings and economic development projects to the salaries of U.S. government employees working closely with Afghans.Yet no one can say with any authority or precision how that money was spent and who profited from it. Most of the funds were funneled to a vast array of U.S. and foreign contractors. But according to a recent audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), there is no way of knowing whether the money went for the intended purposes.'
[….]

“The reason for these agencies’ inability to say where taxpayers’ money is going is simply that the government hasn’t demanded any sort of accountability from its recipients. ‘The money,’ Francis writes, ‘flows from Washington to Afghanistan, with little oversight and accountability, and at every step along the way someone else takes a cut.’[….]

From Francis article:
“Another report found that the United States has spent nearly $200 million on Afghan security service buildings that cannot be used. SIGAR also found that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) couldn’t account for nearly $18 billion that was paid to some 7,000 U.S. and Afghan contractors for development projects. Afghan contractors often pay kickbacks to local warlords, like Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and the so-called “King of Kandahar.” Their actions often undermine the work of the coalition."
[….]

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/foreignpolicy/5695-afghanistan-reconstruction-billions-spent-but-no-one-knows-just-how
---------------

ARTICLE #5: The head watchdog against the massive corruption in Afghanistan resigns because of weakness of enforcement authority.

Jason Ditz, “US Watchdog for Afghan Projects Resigns,” Antiwar.com, Jan 10, 2011

“Special Inspector General Arnold Fields, the Obama Administration’s top watchdog against the massive corruption in Afghanistan, followed up last week’s pledge not to resign with a formal announcement of his resignation.

“Fields has been regularly presenting reports on the corruption surrounding US aid programmes in occupied Afghanistan, and has cautioned that there are virtually no controls in place and that much of the aid is being stolen or wasted as a result.
[….]

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/10/us-watchdog-for-afghan-projects-resigns

What Obama didn't say about the US intervention in Afghanistan

2011-01-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

In his State of the Union address to the nation, President Obama did not spend much time on foreign policy and, with respect to Afghanistan, offered an upbeat picture that doesn’t jive with many reports of the actual conditions in that country. Consider some of the highlights from just a few of the sources that challenge Obama’s things-are-going-well assessment.

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Mismanaged War, Corrupt Afghan Government, Spreading Taliban Control –

Robert Dreyfuss provides an excellent analysis of the foreign-policy aspects of Obama’s speech in an article titled, “State of the Union Glosses Over Obama’s Foreign Policy Failures.” Of particular interest for this website, Dreyfuss makes the following points on some of the bad news from Afghanistan that Obama disregards.

“On Afghanistan... Obama put a rosy gloss on the catastrophically mismanaged war, in which more and more Afghan provinces have fallen under Taliban control or influence, with impregnable safe havens in neighboring Pakistan feeding an insurgency that won’t go away, in a country whose government is irreparably corrupt and feckless. To Obama, though, everything’s fine.”

Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/158034/obamas-sotu-make-world-go-away

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No clear withdrawal date for bringing US troops home. Even Obama is unsure.

Jason Ditz focuses on the on contradictory statements coming from the White House regarding a withdrawal date for at least a start of withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Here Ditz refers to President Obama’s SOTU speech.

“…he [President Obama] lauded the Afghan War and the “enduring partnership” it was creating. Perhaps the only interesting thing, and I say this only for desperation to find something, is that he insisted troops would begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in July.

“Of course, he announced the July drawdown in December, and the comments seem to be taken largely from that, but it seems that his speechwriters forget that he publicly disavowed the July 2011 drawdown date in June, and several more times since then.”

Source: http://news/antiwar.com/2011/01/25/president-obama-rehashes-dubious-claims-about-wars/

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Some officials believe the occupation of Afghan will continue well beyond 2014. Obama has not rejected this belief.

In another post, Jason Ditz quotes a EU envoy who can imagine another 30 years of NATO (including US) occupation, while less effusive US and other officials see the war/occupation lasting past 2014, the latest target date mentioned by Obama.

“Speaking today from Kabul, European Union Special Representative Vygaudas Usackas mocked the notion of ending the Afghan War in 2014, insisting it was time to “be honest with ourselves” that the war will last much, much longer.

“How long? Well according to Usackas, who was the former Foreign Minister of Luthuania, he believes NATO will have to commit to another 30 years of war, though he conceded that somewhere along the line, the 150,000 NATO troops could probably be reduced before then.

“…Despite repeated claims of vague “progress” in the war a number of officials from the US and Britain have openly talked about the war lasting another decade or longer.”
Source: http://news/antiwar.com/2011/01/26/eu-envoy-eyes-another-30-years-of-nato-occupation-in-afghanistan

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US building more military bases in Afghanistan – another fact Obama failed to include in his State of the Union address

The Skeptics, writing on The National Interest blog, note that President Obama is not much interested in informing the American people about “the expansion of America’s Afghan military bases.” The Skeptic draw their evidence from Nick Turse, associate editor of TomDispatch.com, who “has done a fantastic job collating which of America’s forward operating bases (FOBs) are being expanded, improved, and hardened.” Here’s one example:

“FOB Shank in Logar Province has a new $12 million, 1.4-mile-long airstrip that can accommodate Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft. According to Turse, government documents released in August show that in addition, FOB Shank ‘will be adding a new two-story barracks, constructed of containerized housing units known as ‘relocatable buildings’ or RLBs, to accommodate 1,100 more troops. Support facilities, access roads, parking areas, new utilities, and other infrastructure required to sustain the housing complex will also be installed for an estimated $5 million to $10 million….New aircraft maintenance facilities and 80,000 square feet more of taxiways will also be built at the cost of another $10 million to $25 million.’”

You can find the full list at: The Skeptics Base Building in Afghanistan? The National Interest, Jan 25, 2011-01-29. Source: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/base-building-afghanistan-4774

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Jason Ditz points to recent evidence of a “dramatic increase in US troops killed by Afghanistan IEDs in 2010.” Obama stayed away from this subject.

Citing “official war data,” the trend in US military fatalities and wounded continues upward.
“The toll showed a 60 percent increase in deaths, with 268 US troops killed in 2010. This was also about the same number as were killed in all of 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined. This was despite claims from officials that the Pentagon several times during 2010 that the number of IEDs was ‘falling’.”

“The number of wounded was even worse, however, with figures showing a 178 percent increase from 2009 to 2010, and 3,366 confirmed injuries from IED attacks. This was dramatically more than had been wounded by IEDs in the entire rest of the war.”
Source: http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/26/dramatic-increase-in-us-troops-killed-by-afghanistan-ieds-in-2010

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US plans for supporting Afghan national security forces ineffective and a waste of billions. Nothing like this from Obama.

Marisa Taylor writes for McClatchy Newspapers on a report by “auditors with the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction” who find that the “Obama administration’s $11.4 billion plan to bolster Afghanistan’s security forces is ‘at risk’ because of poor planning.” The report was released on Wednesday, January 26.

“Auditors with the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the U.S. government ‘could not provide the plans or justifications’ for building nearly 900 police stations and garrisons and other facilities for Afghanistan's national security forces.

“The report confirms earlier findings in a series late last year by McClatchy that found the ambitious strategy, like much of the wider Afghan reconstruction effort, is faltering. The program is a linchpin of President Barack Obama's strategy to strengthen Afghan security forces so 100,000 U.S. troops can come home by the end of 2014.”
[….]

“McClatchy also discovered that dozens of structures across the country either were poorly constructed or never completed at all. Tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers who were supposed to be living in garrisons were still housed in tents.”
[….]

"’The government of Afghanistan does not have the financial or technical capacity to sustain’" buildings once they are completed, the auditors concluded.

“As a result, the U.S. has awarded two contracts to ITT Corp. totaling $800 million to help maintain the facilities.”
[….]

“McClatchy found that ITT's work was one of nearly $4.5 billion in contracts in Afghanistan that were awarded to companies even though they violated laws or had high-profile disputes over previous projects.”

Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/26/107500/watchdog-faults-obamas-afghan.html#

Also see: http://thehill.com/news-by-subjetc-defense-homeland-security/139729-afghanistan-watchdog-says-11-billion-in-us-funds-are-at-risk

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Other failures in US-funded reconstruction projects, including the largest power plant in Kabul. Generally, projects are over-budget, of poor construction, involving corrupt officials, unfinished, unmaintained if and when completed. Another subject the Obama administration leaves alone.

Reporting for McClatchy Newspapers, Marisa Taylor and Dion Nissenbaum write on “Kabul's largest power plant project” and how it has been held up by US officials as “a shining example of how American taxpayers' dollars would pull Afghanistan out of grinding poverty and decades of demoralizing conflict.” This is just one of the examples of inefficiency on which they report. Here I quote from the article.

“But behind the scenes…officials were voicing outrage over the slow pace of the [power plant] project and its skyrocketing costs. The problems were so numerous that one company official told the U.S. government that he'd understand if the contract were canceled.

“‘We are discouraged and exhausted with the continued flow of bad information,’ one U.S. official complained in an internal memo that McClatchy obtained. ‘This is a huge example of poor performance on an extremely important development project.’

“Despite expressing serious misgivings in internal memos and meetings, the U.S. agency [USAID] that was overseeing the project more than doubled the plant's budget.
[….]

“In the rush to rebuild Afghanistan, the U.S. government has charged ahead with ever-expanding development programs despite questions about their impact, cost and value to America's multi-billion-dollar campaign to shore up the pro-Western Afghan president and prevent Taliban insurgents from seizing control.
[….]

“An approach that experts denounce as ad hoc and politicized has led to programs with mixed, if not poor, results and has soured many Afghans on the U.S. military's presence in their country, even as the Obama administration is banking on their support.

“McClatchy found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government's questions about their effectiveness or cost.
[….]

“The projects, overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development, are designed to address different goals in Afghanistan but all offer evidence that the U.S. has downplayed their waste and inefficiency in its zeal to demonstrate short-term success.”

"Meanwhile, Afghanistan is littered with scores of unfinished or hazardous buildings constructed with American money. Programs continue to receive tens of millions of dollars in U.S. aid even as contractors or government officials concede that the goals are unrealistic or inappropriate for Afghanistan. For instance, the U.S. is seeking to dramatically increase the number of women employed by local governments, even though previous projects with similar aims have failed because of threats to female workers.

“While many of the programs were launched under the Bush administration, several have continued and have been given more money on President Barack Obama's watch.
[….]

“Adding to the problems, the list of recipients seemed to include thousands of phantom farmers: Fingerprints collected as proof that the farmers had received vouchers for buying seeds appeared to be falsified in more than half the 4,500 records the auditors reviewed.

“Even so, the Obama administration revamped the program's safeguards, dramatically increased its budget and transformed it into a broader counterinsurgency initiative that hands out jobs, fertilizer and support to farmers who are willing to cooperate with the U.S-backed government.

The program's original price tag: $33 million. Since the questions were raised: $431 million.
[….]

Some U.S. officials and contractors acknowledge privately that they're spending more on high-profile, flawed projects because of the pressure to show results quickly that could help bolster the government of President Hamid Karzai.
[….]

“To manage spending in Afghanistan, the USAID increased its staff, but it still struggles to keep tabs on programs. One U.S. official said the agency got "tied down doing paperwork and can't get out into the field to see if the projects are moving ahead." At the same time, it's quadrupled its overall spending to $300 million a month, with more than a quarter of it going directly to the Afghan government.

“When it comes to large-scale, ambitious aid programs, many outside experts are at a loss as how to handle programs in Afghanistan better, and they say the problems raise fundamental questions about whether the U.S.'s efforts to rebuild the country can work.”
[….]

Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/12/106681/troubled-us-afghan-projects-mushroom.html#

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Poppy eradication efforts by NATO and Afghan government backfiring. Such efforts have frequently ended up supporting large heroin dealers and corrupt government officials, while driving farmers to look for protection from various Taliban groups. Obama - not a word.

Ryan Harvey explores how large poppy growers and high government officials have benefited from the Afghan governments “efforts” to eradicate poppy farms. That’s called counter-productive, not counter-insurgency. Here I quote the first paragraphs from Harvey’s long and informative article.

“It has long been known inside Afghanistan that heroin dealers in high positions benefit from the United States and Afghan governments' counternarcotics policies.

“Now the American public can get a glimpse. US embassy cables published recently by WikiLeaks expose the insider opinion that Afghan officials are using poppy eradication teams to weed out the competitors of major traffickers with whom they are linked.

“The leaked cables follow previous observations, investigations, government reports and testimonials by former contractors that say eradication efforts have long been corrupted and misused, and that Afghan officials have consistently thwarted any serious attempts at stemming the heroin trade.

“The US and Britain began the operations in 2002, with the Afghan government acting as a silent partner and contractors like DynCorp pulling security. The theory was that if the Taliban was to be defeated, it would largely be through removing their access to the heroin industry and its associated taxes and bribes.
[….]

“But many of the people who were and still are responsible for the eradication program are corrupt officials in the Afghan government, most of whom are just as involved in the heroin economy, if not more, as the growers they are targeting.

“Indeed, instead of hurting the Taliban, the operations, in the words of former US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, were ‘driving farmers into the hands of the Taliban.’

“It was for that reason that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has stepped back recently, giving the Afghan government the reins in order to give the programs an "Afghan face." Consolidating Power

“But there's more to NATO's shift than farmers running to the Taliban after having their livelihoods destroyed by eradication teams.

“US embassy cables written in 2007 and leaked this December suggest that poppy eradication teams have been used by warlords and other powerful provincial leaders to consolidate power.”

Source: http://www.truth-out.org/how-afghan-poppy-eradication-efforts-are-helping-worlds-largest-heroin-dealers67175
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In short, Obama’s words begin to appear hollow when the darker aspects of the US/NATO war/occupation of Afghanistan are put forth. Politically, the President's upbeat message and references to a hopeful future may temporarily grip his audience and raise their spirits, but it is not sustainable in light of the facts.

David Swanson concludes his fine article, “Why Pentagon Claims MLK Would Love War in Afghanistan, with the following words from Martin Luther King, Jr,” making clear that the Obama administration is hardly in the King tradition when it comes of Afghanistan.

"I am convinced," King said, "that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society into a person-oriented society. . . . On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. . . . The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: 'This way of settling differences is not just.' This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military 'defense' than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Source: http://zcommunications.org/why-pentagon-claims-mlk-would-love-war-on-afghanistan-by-david-swanson

.

Where do ordinary Afghan citizens fit in the future of the US/NATO occupation

2011-01-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

The US/NATO strategy in Afghanistan is based mostly on some mixture of counter-terrorism (killing Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan) and counter-insurgency (forcing insurgents out of targeted areas and winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan residents). Nir Rosen and Marika Theros refer to evidence of the failure of the strategy up to now. (You can access the full article at http://www.commondreans.org/view/2011/01/18-8.) I’ll identify some of their central points with quotes from their article and few statements.

First, Rosen and Marika challenge Obama’s recent cautious but upbeat annual review of purported military progress and improved Afghan security in 2010. Their cogent summary doesn’t support Obama’s views.

“The year 2010 witnessed a significant spike in violence both in the south, with offensive military operations triggering greater Taliban intimidation [2] and assassinations of civilians, and in the north [3] in heretofore ‘stable areas’ where international neglect and government abuse provide fertile ground for insurgent expansion. Real progress has been further complicated by the increasingly poisonous relationship between the Afghan government, the international community, and the Afghan people, aggravated by a potentially catastrophic electoral crisis [4], even more predatory government corruption and brazen war-profiteering [5], and near total disregard for the average Afghan citizen. As American and NATO forces enter their tenth year in Afghanistan, Afghan communities find themselves increasingly caught in a complex system of violence generated by insurgents, criminal gangs, drug lords, corrupt officials, US-allied local strongmen, and aggressive international forces.”

Second, the US military strategy during 2010 resulted in continuing and extensive damage to the Afghan population, property, and environment. They write:
“In Kandahar, the US is bombarding populated areas with smart rocket launchers and guided warheads, razing orchards, destroying homes, and partnering with people like the brutal commander [8] Colonel Abdul Razik and his militia. This increase in offensive operations, night raids, drone attacks, and use of irregular local forces remain precisely the tactics that provoke civilian outrage [9] even as they increase Taliban losses. Even more problematic, the international community never developed a complementary and much-needed political strategy that reinforces Afghan national unity and builds trust between state and society through genuine political reform and reconciliation at all levels of society.”

Third, Rosen and Marika provide evidence on the views of ordinary Afghan cities, focusing on their own experiences and future prospects. The evidence comes from a study sponsored in 2009 by LSE Global Governance at the London School of Economics and the Civil Society Development Center in Afghanistan. Rosen and Marika

“engaged a range of selected Afghan citizens - community, religious, and tribal leaders; NGO and community activists; teachers and educators; and, students and youth leaders – in seven regions to capture their experiences of insecurity and their views on how to secure Afghanistan’s future, including the provinces of Balkh, Baghlan, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, Khost, and Nangarhar.” They identify three themes from the first rounds of interviews.

“ Firstly, the Taliban movement is a symptom of larger ills, and the continued focus on defeating them obscures the fact that the post-2001 political and economic order the international community helped create is the fundamental driver of instability, violence, and recruitment into the insurgency. Secondly, the current strategy with its near exclusive focus on government and armed actors as partners in the war effort perpetuates a system of personalized politics, power-grabbing and profiteering that fosters insecurity, corrupts Afghan society, and prevents the emergence of alternative political forces…. [while continuing] more as a mutual business enterprise in which belligerents – the political and economic elites, the internationals, and the insurgents – use insecurity as a cover for personal political and economic ambitions. They point to the massive amounts of international aid underwriting a perverse political economy that has created a nexus of financial interests between corrupt government officials, warlords, international contractors, and even the Taliban….”

“Finally… most Afghans want a rational outcome that produces a participatory system of governance rooted in Afghan values and able to provide minimally adequate services of justice, health, and education. Most Afghans do not challenge the existence of the state itself and support a unified Afghanistan…. In assessing the current struggle, Afghans look to progress on questions of justice, representation and allocation of resources rather than to kill-and-capture rates or announcements of new programmes in Kandahar or Helmand that link the populace to the government.”

In short, the situation in Afghanistan remains mired in conflict, corruption, destruction, and extensive human casualties and death. A major part of the problem is that the US and its allies are out-of-touch with or are misreading the views of ordinary Afghan citizens. Rosen and Marika believe that the situation can be ameliorated, though “not all of it can be undone.” Nonetheless, they can imagine policies that would be in the interests of the broad range of Afghan citizens they have interviewed.

First, with respect to the international aid coming into the country, the interviewees say that it must be better targeted, designed, and overseen, as well as making sure “that aid produces tangible results on the ground.”

Second, the international community could use the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to “crack down on corruption.” And, further, the “US Government should seriously consider prosecuting those Afghan-Americans who have participated in corrupt practices.”

Third, “the international community – particularly the US – must do more than pay lip service to a political solution and de-escalate the conflict….This requires more emphasis on issues of governance, justice, and representation; a reconsideration of the exclusive partnerships developed with the pro-government local strongmen; a genuine effort to defend the Afghan population from predatory political and economic elites (and not only insurgents); and, increased checks on impunity and marginalization.”

Unfortunately, there is little in US history that would justify much hope in seeing US foreign and military policies transformed in ways to give humanitarian and democratic values priority over the interests of those in the US who dominate the economic and political systems. It’s not out of the question, though there is no recent precedent. We’ll see. It depends in part on how the following questions are answered. Will we witness the Obama administration and the US Congress reduce the allocation of money and resources to the US military in Afghanistan? Will there be a withdrawal of a large number of troops over the course of the year? Will the US and her allies, along with other concerned nations and the UN, find ways to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan that are consistent with the views of the majority of the Afghan people?

Afghanistan as deepening quagmire

2011-01-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

One definition of “quagmire” is “a difficult or inextricable position,” and some definitions of the word inextricable are (1) “cannot be disentangled or untied” and (2) “so complicated or involved as to be insolvable.” As time passes, the 9-year-plus US/NATO war/occupation of Afghanistan seems more and more like a quagmire, or (let me expand a bit) being bogged down in a deteriorating and increasingly insolvable, harmful, and costly circumstances that alienate a growing number of Afghan people and citizens in other countries of the Middle East and Central Asia, leads to growing opposition to the war among the American public, and helps to perpetuate the idea that military force, once deployed, must continue.

In human terms, the casualty rates among US and allied forces are climbing and the civilian casualty rates are going up.

Here is just one example of the human damage from a Reuters article, January 11, 2011, based on reporting by Hamid Shalizi, writing by Michelle Nichols, and editing by Ron Popeski.

KABUL “Afghan and foreign forces have caused more than $100 million damage to fruit crops and homes during security operations in southern Kandahar province, a government delegation said on Tuesday.

“Tens of thousands of foreign and Afghan troops are deployed in Kandahar, a traditional stronghold of the Afghan Taliban, where they have been conducting military offensives over the past year.

“Violence is at its worst since U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Islamist government in 2001 after it refused to hand over al Qaeda militants, including Osama bin Laden, after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

“The government delegation, led by President Hamid Karzai's adviser, Mohammad Sadiq Aziz, said Afghan and foreign forces caused unreasonable damage to homes and orchards, just as the harvest was about to begin, and displaced a number of people.
[….]

“In November, the Afghan Rights Monitor (ARM), a human rights group, reported widespread damage to hundreds of houses in the same three districts, home to about 300,000 of the province's more than one million inhabitants.

“It said foreign forces had used aerial bombing to strike Taliban strongholds and to set off mines and homemade bombs sometimes hidden as booby traps in private homes.”

In addition, the economic costs for the US are soaring and adding as much as $120 billion for the next fiscal year. The rising US expenditures on the war/occupation are off budget and identified as “supplementary funding,” just like they were during the eight years of the Bush administration. But the expenditures don’t vanish. They show up – or will show up - in the US annual deficit, expected to be well over $1.5 trillion in 2011-2012, and to the ever-climbing, now $14 trillion plus, US national debt. What an awful, stupid waste.

Furthermore, the economy of Afghanistan, outside of the world-leading poppy and opium sectors, and outside of some neighborhoods in Kabul, remains largely in shambles.

This is not to say there are not some success stories. The Central Asia Institute, inspired by Greg Mortenson’s work, had by 2009 “established 131 schools that currently serve more than 58,000 students, most of them girls” (Stones into Schools, p. 15).

But the larger picture is grim, and reflected in one of the highest poverty and illiteracy rates in the world, in the increased US air war as well as in the increased ground war, and in the destruction and corruption spurred by it all. The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights provides some gruesome facts in a report titled “Massive human rights deficit”:

“Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth with two out of every three of its citizens struggling to provide naan-o-chai (bread and tea) for their families. The maternal mortality rate is the second highest in the world, it ranks at three for child mortality, only a quarter of the population have access to supplies of drinking water and less than 15 percent of women are literate.” (http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/massivehrdeficit.aspx)

Also counterproductive as well as disaffecting. Juan Cole posts the following headline on his blog Informed Comment (Jan. 4, 2011): “Taliban getting stronger as US public support for Afghanistan War collapses.” Cole continues:

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai is getting weaker over time, and the Taliban are getting stronger, according to Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Matthews says that there will be a lull in the winter, but insurgent operations will pick up in the spring. As NATO allies draw down (many have announced their intention to leave the country), the US will likely need more troops to replace the departing European ones and to confront the growing insurgent challenge, she says. She does not think Afghanistan will emerge as a political issue in the next presidential race.”
Cole also refers to a recent CNN poll and its implications.

“A recent CNN poll found that only 35% of Americans support the US military mission in Afghanistan, and 63% oppose it. Even among Republicans, where there is a slight majority in favor, some 44% oppose the war! And, 56% of Americans think the war is going badly. Since Americans like a winner, that statistic is perhaps the most deadly for the Obama administration and the Pentagon. As recently as March, 2010, the country was evenly divided and a majority thought that the war was going well. But note that March was just after the Marjah campaign in Helmand province, which created a press image of activity and progress, and there was talk about a big offensive in Qandahar. But Marjah was not the quick victory Americans had hoped for and the Qandahar campaign is a far subtler and less dramatic affair than had been envisioned last spring.”

“But in postmodern warfare, it doesn’t seem to matter if the public supports the war or not.”
[….]

In his final sentence, Cole writes:

“In a recent paper at Chatham House, Kate Clark argues that lack of social justice and bad government policy are driving the increasing insurgency” – and it appears to be getting worse.

We should be reminded of what Malalai Joya pointed out in her book, A Woman Among Warlords (2009): “Today we Afghans remain trapped, between two enemies: the Taliban on one side and US/NATO forces and their warlord hirelings on the other” (p. 227). But it may be that the corruption and terror for Afghans has spread since Joya wrote her book a couple of years ago.

For example, Mujib Mashal finds evidence on “Rogue militias abuse rural Afghans” in an article for Al Jazeera (Jan. 12, 2011). He writes:

“’At night, they come out on the roads with their faces covered,’" said Obaid Sediq, a resident of Central Baghlan in northeastern Afghanistan. ‘Many times they have stopped our car and emptied our pockets. They have guns and you can't say anything back.’

“The Arbakai, semi-official local militias, have committed tremendous abuses in Afghanistan's northeastern provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan. President Hamid Karzai finally ordered their disarmament last month.

“These militias are known to collect forced ‘taxes’ from feeble locals, create illegal checkpoints, seize property, and detain people in private jails - all at gun point and sanctioned by the government in Kabul.

“This widespread abuse damages government legitimacy and casts doubt over a recent program to create local police forces in other parts of the country. It also brings into question the effectiveness of the quick solutions sought to the security problems in Afghanistan.

“Historically, Arbakai militias were a major part of the tribal security apparatus in southeastern Afghanistan. Loosely linked to the central government, these groups typically came together from village families and provided security in times of need. A standing police force in these areas was a rarity.

“In the north, however, the idea of Arbakai is new. In fact, they are largely made up of former Mujahideen from the civil war period who were disarmed in the early years of President Karzai's government. In the past couple years, they have regrouped under their former commanders, re-christened as Arbakai with new weapons.”
[….]

“In the past three years, however, the security situation has deteriorated, even in the north. The national police, nine years after its rebirth, failed to meet security needs. The central government has resorted to arming local groups. Those who had recently been disarmed found themselves in a position of power again - by gathering as Arbakai militias to fill the security void. These men were to defend against any Taliban spread within the bounds of their village. But, as has happened so many times in Afghanistan, some Arbakai militias turned on the locals and used their guns for abuse of every kind.
[….]

“According to the governor, over 800 Arbakai forces have been active in Khanabad for the past year and half. In this period, they have occupied people's land, forced people to pay their everyday expenses, imprisoned people over personal animosities, and have been involved in murder and mayhem, much of which has gone unaccounted.

"’As the governor, I feel ashamed in my helplessness,’ says Nizamuldin. ‘People come to complain of their abuses often, but my hands are tied because my police cannot match them.’ According to the governor, there are 152 registered villages in Khanabad but only 117 active police officers at the governor's disposal.
[….]

"’In theory, the Afghan Local Police are different from the Arbakais, and steps to prevent abuse might exist,’ says Lt. General Hadi Khaled, a former Deputy Minister of the Interior. ‘The implementation is usually hasty and left to powerful locals. That's where the problem begins.’

“According to General Khaled, the creation of such groups - under any name - will make governance difficult. In appearance, he says, security might improve. But beneath the surface, tremendous problems will arise.

"’Lets face up to the reality,’ says General Khaled. ‘These men will answer to their own bosses, and not to the government. With their presence, law and order will be impossible.’”

So many Afghans suffer. And yet US military and political leaders insist that the same approach to Afghanistan must continue until at least 2014 and probably for many years thereafter. This is not so unusual, this foolhardy and counterproductive pattern. Go back and read the books by William Blum (e.g., Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II) or the new book by David Swanson, War is a Lie.

Let me finish with a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s book, A Man Without a Country (2005):

“I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren.

“They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Bomber corporations and government.

Yes, this planet is in a terrible mess. But it has always been a mess. There have never been any ‘Good Old Days,’ there have just been days. And as I say to my grandchildren, ‘Don’t look at me, I just got here.’”

Afghanistan in the first days of 2011 - bad news overwhelms good news

2011-01-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

There are mixed results over the last two weeks, including the first days of the new year, regarding the US-dominated/NATO occupation and war in Afghanistan. There is some good news, but, sadly, the bad news remains greatly ascendant.

First the good news. Jason Ditz reports on Antiwar.com (12/30/10) that the newest CNN/Opinion Research poll finds that “63 percent of the American public opposed to the war, the largest opposition yet from the regular poll.” Another question posed by the pollsters finds that “56 percent of Americans believe the war is going either ‘moderately badly’ or ‘very badly.” Ditz notes that this poll was taken after the president’s December 16 speech on Afghanistan, indicating that Obama’s upbeat message did not resonate well with most of the American public.

While such poll findings may be momentarily uplifting for those of us who have opposed the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from the beginning, going back to 2001 or even before, public opinion does not much affect US Afghan policies. A positive note is that such polls may reflect a growing awareness among an increasing number of Americans that the war is too costly financially and much too injurious (or lethal) for American troops and their families. One implication is that there is a growing sentiment that we need to direct our attention to the serious domestic problems in America of unemployment and underemployment, the continuing housing crisis, a pressing need to channel more support to public education through college, the overall debt-ridden American government, economy, and society, research and technology on green energy, and so forth. On this score, Tom Engelhardt comments in one of the paragraphs from his much longer article on Antiwar.com, “The Urge to Surge,” January 4, 2011:

"The U.S. economy looks increasingly sclerotic; moneys for an aging and rotting infrastructure are long gone; state and city governments are laying off teachers, police, even firefighters; Americans are unemployed in near record numbers; global oil prices (for a country that has in no way begun to wean itself from its dependence on foreign oil) are ominously on the rise; and yet taxpayer money continues to pour into the military and into our foreign wars. It has recently been estimated, for instance, that after spending $11.6 billion in 2011 on the training, supply, and support of the Afghan army and police, the U.S. will continue to spend an average of $6.2 billion a year at least through 2015 (and undoubtedly into an unknown future) – and that’s but one expense in the estimated $120 billion to $160 billion a year being spent at present on the Afghan War, what can only be described as part of America’s war stimulus package abroad." (http://original/antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/01/04/the-urge-to-surge-4)

However, the increasingly plutocratic nature of the US political system, the power of the military-industrial complex, the foreign policy based on force as always a viable, if not preferred, option, the continuing and increasing dependence on foreign oil - all represent some of the dominant influences with respect to foreign policy generally and to Afghanistan specifically. Public opinion appears little more than a passing annoyance to the decision-makers, especially when there is yet no strong anti-Afghan war movement.

Among the other bad news items, Jason Ditz’s Antiwar.com column on January 6, 2011 offers the following example, reporting that “Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has approved yet another escalation of the war in Afghanistan, this time approving another 1,400 Marines who are expected to be sent to Afghanistan within a matter of weeks.”

How many US troops are already in Afghanistan? According to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), there were 90,000 US troops in Afghanistan near the end of 2010, along with 39,215 troops with allied countries, ranging from no troops from Jordan and Tonga to 9,500 troops from the UK. http://www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/File/Placeats/14DEC%202010%20Placemat.pdf

Other reports have indicated the US troop level closer to 100,000. With the additional 1,400 US troops, the total number now rises to 91,400 or to above 100,000.

The numbers don’t end there. There are an unknown number of CIA operatives and US Special Forces, plus US-connected contractors. Further, according to Wikipedia, there were in 2010 138,200 Afghan National Army troops and 120,500 Afghan National Police officers. There are regular reports that indicate many of the Afghan troops and police officers are not well trained, not reliable, and/or infiltrated by people who are sympathetic to the Taliban.

Despite the growing number of US and other troops and police in Afghanistan, the situation there appears to be getting worse. The Dailykos.com website quotes from Agence France-Presse, December 27, 2010, on two confidential UN maps showing “a clear deterioration in security in parts of Afghanistan.” Quoting Kieran Dwyer, “communications director of the UN mission in Afghanistan, “There are parts of the country that have become increasingly difficult to operate in during 2010 due to insecurity.” The article notes further, “Violence in the north has steadily worsened over the last two years despite the Taliban insurgency having its powerbase in the south.” (http://www.kailykos.com/story/2010/12/28/931769/-Open-thread-for-night-owls:-Insecurity-rises-in-Afghanistan

Juan Cole identifies the “top ten myths about Afghanistan,” including this one on the deteriorating security environment in the country. (“Top Ten Myths About Afghanistan,” Informed Comment, December 27, 2010.) First the myth, then the fact.

Myth: “There has been significant progress in tamping down the insurgency in Afghanistan.”

Fact: A recent National Intelligence Estimate by 16 intelligence agencies found no progress. It warned that large swathes of the country were at risk of falling to the Taliban and that they still had safe havens in Pakistan, with the Pakistani government complicit. The UN says there were over 6000 civilian casualties of war in Afghanistan in the first 10 months of 2010, a 20% increase over the same period in 2009. Also, 701 US and NATO troops have been killed this year, compared to 521 last year, a 25% increase. There were typically over 1000 insurgent attacks per month in Afghanistan this year, often twice as many per month as in 2009, recalling the guerrilla war in Iraq in 2005.

US Afghanistan policy has a pronounced surreal quality about it. Tom Engelhardt captures some of this when he compares the recent surge in US troops to how Soviet generals were thinking back in the 1980s about the future progress of their occupation. Both the Soviet generals and the US decision-makers are caught up in pipedreams, though with lots of destructive consequences. Engelhardt writes:

“As 2011 begins, what could be eerier than reading secret Soviet documents from the USSR’s Afghan debacle of the 1980s? It gives you chills to run across Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at a Politburo meeting in October 1985, almost six years after Soviet troops first flooded into Afghanistan, reading letters aloud to his colleagues from embittered Soviet citizens (‘The Politburo had made a mistake and must correct it as soon as possible – every day precious lives are lost’); or, in November 1986, insisting to those same colleagues that the Afghan war must be ended in a year, ‘at maximum, two.’ Yet, with the gut-wrenching sureness history offers, you can’t help but know that, even two years later, even with a strong desire to leave (which has yet to surface among the Washington elite a decade into our own Afghan adventure), imperial pride and fear of loss of ‘credibility’ would keep the Soviets fighting on to 1989.” (http://original/antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/01/04/the-urge-to-surge-4)

US drones chasing the Taliban into Pakistan & taking ever greater risks

2010-12-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

Reporting for Aljazeera online, Spencer Ackerman writes on the unprecedented CIA’s drone attacks in Waziristan areas of Pakistan (Dec. 17, 2010). Before delving further into his article, I draw information from Wikipedia that helps us to locate Waziristan in Pakistan, its official designation, and why it is important to the CIA and US military forces stationed in Afghanistan.
According to Wikipedia,

“Waziristan (Pashto and Urdu: وزیرستان, "land of the Wazir") is a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and covering some 11,585 km² (4,473 sq mi). It is part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, considered to be outside the country's four provinces.

“Waziristan comprises the area west and southwest of Peshawar between the Tochi River to the north and the Gomal River to the south. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lies immediately to the east. The region was an independent tribal territory until 1893, remaining outside the British Empire. Tribal raiding into British-ruled territory was a constant problem for the British,[1] eliciting frequent punitive expeditions between 1860 and 1945. The region became part of Pakistan in 1947. [See map from Wikipedia below.]

“For administrative purposes, Waziristan is divided into two "agencies", North Waziristan and South Waziristan, with estimated populations (as of 1998) of 361,246 and 429,841 respectively. The two parts have quite distinct characteristics, though both tribes are subgroups of the Wazir Tribe and speak a common Wazirwola language. They have a reputation as formidable warriors,[2] and are known for their frequent blood feuds.[citation needed]

“The Wazir tribes are divided into sub-tribes governed by male village elders who meet in a tribal jirga. Socially and religiously, Waziristan is an extremely conservative area. Women are carefully guarded, and every household must be headed by a male figure. Tribal cohesiveness is also kept strong by means of the so-called Collective Responsibility Acts in the Frontier Crimes Regulation.

“Taliban presence in the area has been an issue of international concern in the War on Terrorism particularly since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.”

Expansion of Drone Warfare

Once focused on South Waziristan, the CIA drone attacks have been expanded to and increasingly concentrated on North Waziristan. Ackerman writes:

“Over the past two days, four Predators or Reapers fired their missiles at suspected militants in North Waziristan, with three of the strikes coming early today.

“They represent a geographic expansion of the drone war. Today’s strikes come in Khyber, an area abutting Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, that’s been notably drone-free. It has become an area for militants fleeing military action in South Waziristan to take succor.”

As drone attacks have been expanded geographically, they have also increased in number. The “drone-strike tally for this year,” Ackerman reports, [is] “up to 113, more than twice last year’s 53 strikes.” But there is more.

“According to a tally kept by the Long War Journal, 58 of those strikes have come since September: There has been a drone attack every 1.8 days since Labor Day. LWJ’s Bill Roggio says the pace of attacks between September and November (there was a brief December respite, now erased) is “unprecedented since the U.S. began the air campaign in Pakistan in 2004.” (By contrast, in 2008, there were just 34 strikes.)

And the majority of the drone attacks in 2010 have “clustered in North Waziristan.”

“Both Roggio and the New America Foundation have found that the overwhelming majority of this year’s strikes have clustered in North Waziristan: at least 99, by Roggio’s count.”

What are drones? The following information is from Wikipedia, “General Atomics MQ-1 Predator.”

“The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Initially conceived in the early 1990s for reconnaissance and forward observation roles, the Predator carries cameras and other sensors but has been modified and upgraded to carry and fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or other munitions. The aircraft, in use since 1995, has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen.

“The USAF describes the Predator as a "Tier II" MALE UAS (medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV system). The UAS consists of four aircraft or "air vehicles" with sensors, a ground control station (GCS), and a primary satellite link communication suite.[3] Powered by a Rotax engine and driven by a propeller, the air vehicle can fly up to 400 nautical miles (740 km) to a target, loiter overhead for 14 hours, then return to its base.

“Following 2001, the RQ-1 Predator drone became the primary UAV used for offensive operations by the USAF and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas. It has also been deployed in other locations. Because offensive uses of the Predator are classified, US military officials have reported an appreciation for the intelligence and reconnaissance-gathering abilities of UAVs but declined to discuss their offensive use in public.[4]”

Effects on and responses from Pakistanis to Drone attacks

Ackerman:

“It may take years, but some researcher will travel to Pakistan’s tribal areas and produce a definitive study on what it’s been like to live amidst an aerial bombardment from American pilotless aircraft. When that account inevitably comes out, it’s likely to find that 2010 — and especially the final quarter of 2010 — marked a turning point in how civilians coped with a drone war that turned relentless.”
[….]

“But no one knows whether a backlash is just around the corner. While most Pakistanis remain ignorant of the strikes, those in the tribal areas live literally in their shadow, and register enormous discontent, approving of retaliatory attacks on U.S. forces.

“Reportedly, the CIA’s top officer in Islamabad has fled Pakistan after a man from North Waziristan whose son and brother were killed in a strike filed a lawsuit against the agency.

“There’s no official or universally accepted figure of how many civilians have died as a result of the strikes, but New America pegs it at around 25 percent of all fatalities. Long War Journal’s registry is more generous, claiming that 1,671 militants and 108 civilians have died in the strikes since 2006.”

Are the Drone Attacks Legal?

From Ackerman: “Then there’s the question of whether the strikes are legal. Obama administration claims that the September 2001 congressional Authorization to Use Military Force in retaliation for 9/11 provides all the legal protection necessary for the strikes. Some lawyers and law professors, by contrast, think that the drones’ remote pilots could eventually get hauled before a war-crimes tribunal.

“A United Nations report urged Obama to rein in the drones, restricting them to attacks on the seniormost militants. He did the opposite.

“Don’t expect him to heed that warning in 2011 either. After reading the administration’s war-progress report, The New York Times‘ David Sanger noted that background discussions with administration officials made it clear that next year “the pace will be picked up.” The technology certainly enables it: The Predator is giving way to the Reaper drone, which carries a bigger payload; while weapons manufacturers are lightening the weights of air-launched precision missiles.
[….]

“However targeted the strikes may be, the hundreds of thousands of civilians in North Waziristan and the rest of the tribal areas live with the anxiety of the missiles overhead. How long can the U.S. avoid a reckoning?” [End of quotes from Ackerman.]

For more information on the legality of the CIA drone attacks on Waziristan, see David W. Glazier’s statement before the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on April 28, 2010. The Subcommittee hearings addressed the topic “Rise of the Drone II: Examining the Legality of Unmanned Targeting.” Glazier is a Professor of Law at the Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. You can find the full six page testimony at: www.fas.org/irp/2010_hr/042810glazier.pdf - In finishing his statement, Glazier says:

“But some matters, such as the use of CIA personnel to conduct armed attacks clearly fall outside the scope of permissible conduct and ought to be reconsidered, particularly as the United States seeks to prosecute members of its adversaries for generally similar conduct.”

Drone attacks may generate instability in Pakistan and backlash against the US.

Anatol Lieven offers his assessment of the implications in a long, informative article published in The Nation magazine, January 3, 2011issue. Lieven is “a professor in the war studies department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New American Foundation in Washington.” His thought: we are playing with fire. Here are a few of his paragraphs from the article, highlighting various issues on why Pakistan is important in the US-led Afghanistan war/occupation and generally for the stability of the region and globally.

“The top leadership of the Afghan Taliban is based in Pakistani Baluchistan under the protection of Pakistani military intelligence, and Pakistan has prevented the United States from launching drone attacks on them there (in contrast with the intensive campaign against targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the north). Taliban forces use Pakistani territory for rest and recuperation, with the support of the local Pashtun population. Pakistan also has close ties to the two other Afghan Pashtun Islamist forces allied to the Taliban, the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network in the Afghan region of Greater Paktika. All of this gives Pakistan considerable influence over the Afghan Taliban—though it must be stressed that this influence is also limited. Any settlement brokered by Pakistan would have to be one the Taliban could accept without humiliation.

“But if Pakistan is vital to a settlement, Pakistan is also vital in itself. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the survival of Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the most important issue for Western and global security in that region. With six times Afghanistan's population, plus nuclear weapons, a highly trained 500,000-man army and a huge diaspora (especially in Britain), Pakistan would increase the international terrorist threat by orders of magnitude if it collapsed. There is a widespread (though exaggerated) view in the West that the weakness of the Pakistani state and the strength of Islamist support makes the country's collapse a real possibility. Leaving aside the danger (as exposed by WikiLeaks) of nuclear materials and skills reaching terrorist groups, the disintegration of the Pakistani army, with its highly trained engineers and anti-aircraft forces, would vastly increase the "conventional" terrorist threat to India and the West.

“It was therefore with horror that I recently heard that the diminished threat from Al Qaeda means that some Western security officials are suggesting that the West can afford to put much more pressure on Islamabad to attack Taliban strongholds in Pakistan's border region, even though this may lead to greater destabilization within Pakistan. This is lunatic reasoning. The diminished power of Al Qaeda should be cause for the United States and NATO to find ways to withdraw from Afghanistan, not step up the fight against the Taliban—since it was to fight Al Qaeda that we went there in the first place. As for the terrorist threat to the West, this has never come from the Afghan Taliban—but it increasingly comes from the Pakistani Taliban and their allies, as the case of attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad demonstrates.

“Unfortunately, the current US strategy is headed in the opposite direction from using Pakistan to broker a settlement, and toward an intensified fight against the Taliban and intensified pressure on Pakistan. Even worse, there are barely the rudiments of a Plan B if that strategy fails. If it proves impossible to strengthen the Afghan National Army sufficiently within the next two years, the options will be stark: either US forces will have to fight on in Afghanistan indefinitely or they will have to accept the probable loss of the south and east of the country and either unending civil war or de facto partition through bloody war rather than negotiated agreement. Among other things, all these options will be bad for Pakistan, especially if India is drawn into much greater support for the anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan. This would in effect lead to an Indo-Pakistani proxy war in Afghanistan.”
[….]

In his concluding paragraph, Lieven writes:

“Behind all these questions lies once again the issue of Pakistan’s role, Pakistan’s future and the US role in that future. Since our options for coercing Pakistan are so limited – at least, without actions that would risk destroying Pakistan and involving us in far worse disasters – we should try to make the best of an admittedly very difficult situation and seek Pakistan’s help in finding a settlement to the Afghanistan conflict.”

In sum, the US is prosecuting a war/occupation in Afghanistan by expanding it into Pakistan, increasing the use of drones, which are of dubious legality, violating the sovereignty of Pakistan, causing civilian casualties, raising the level of anger and hatred of Pakistanis toward the US, potentially undermining the fragile stability of the Pakistan state, and avoiding real negotiations with the Taliban leaders. As Anatol Lieven notes, “This [or something like this] is lunatic reasoning.”

Obama, veteran benefits, and the ravages of war

2010-12-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

President Obama has moved his administration to improve benefits for US veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In his speech of August 31, 2010 on the end of US military combat, or the “end” of this war, not counting the 50,000 “non-combat” soldiers still there, or the escalated air war, or the increased special forces and military advisers. Obama made the following points in one part of his speech.

“Part of that responsibility is making sure that we honor our commitments to those who have served our country with such valor. As long as I am President, we will maintain the finest fighting force that the world has ever known, and do whatever it takes to serve our veterans as well as they have served us. This is a sacred trust. That is why we have already made one of the largest increases in funding for veterans in decades. We are treating the signature wounds of today's wars post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, while providing the health care and benefits that all of our veterans have earned. And we are funding a post-9/11 GI Bill that helps our veterans and their families pursue the dream of a college education. Just as the GI Bill helped those who fought World War II- including my grandfather- become the backbone of our middle class, so today's servicemen and women must have the chance to apply their gifts to expand the American economy. Because part of ending a war responsibly is standing by those who have fought it.”

We can only hope. Still, Obama and the US Congress delivered rhetorically and with new or expanded programs on at least some of the needed (and well earned) benefits. Blake Henderson lists provisions of the legislation passed in the middle of December, 2010, during the “lame duck” session. Henderson’s article, “Lame Duck Comes Up Big for New Vets” (Dec 23, 2010) can be found on the website of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). Here is quote.

“This past week, IAVA saw incredible progress on a number of issues that will impact the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families. The clock was ticking, but IAVA kept the pressure on and we cut through the gridlock that has plagued Washington all year. After a hectic and historic lame duck session, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan saw several key victories, including critical GI Bill upgrades, the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (DADT) and the passage of the Defense Bill (NDAA).

“Here is the principal and most recent segment of the new Obama-supported veterans’ benefits, including all of the “Upgrades to the New GI Bill.” Henderson writes as follows.

“In 2008, historic New GI Bill legislation was signed into law. Since then, IAVA has been fighting for critical upgrades where the benefit was lacking. These upgrades, which were passed [by the Senate and House] last week, will impact 400,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans within the first year.” The President is expected to sign the legislation before the end of the year, which includes the following provisions:

85,000 full-time National Guardsmen who will become eligible for the New GI Bill
58,000 students at private and graduate schools will have increased  tuition benefits
25,000 distance learners will receive a monthly living allowance
21,000 disabled vets using Vocational Rehab will receive additional allowances
19,000 Active Duty service members will receive an annual book stipend
6,000 vocational students will receive tuition/fees and a monthly living allowance
6,000 On The Job training/Apprenticeship participants will get access to an  expanded program 6,000 schools will receive increased fees for processing vets’ paperwork
180,000 new recruits will not have to pay $1,200 to buy into the old GI Bill

The new legislation is praiseworthy. But there are three points I would like to make, and I’ll elaborate the third of them. First, there is nothing in this legislation or any other veterans’ legislation that creates jobs, one of the big problems affecting not only vets but also up to at least twenty million other Americans. Second, without accompanying taxes, the new programs add to the US debt. Third, President Obama’s speech, and subsequent public addresses, glosses over the great harm that the illegal Iraq war has wrought to US troops. By the way, however great this harm is, it pales in significance to the harm the US-led war in Iraq and in Afghanistan has done to their societies, infrastructures, and civilians. (See the last post.)

First example: How much has the Iraq War cost in dollar terms for US taxpayers? What does it continue to cost?

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes have written one of the definitive answers to this question in their book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (2008). Their analysis indicates that the war will have cost between $3 trillion and $5 trillion by 2017.
In their book, The Three Trillion Dollar War (2008), Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University) and Linda Bilmes (Harvard University), estimate that by 2017 the war in Iraq would have cost at least $3 trillion dollars. In a recent article, Washington Post, Sept. 5, 2010, they raise their lowest estimate to $4 trillion. They include costs to date, costs of future operations, estimates of long-term veterans’ medical costs, veteran’s disability, veteran’s social security, repair and updating of equipment, the interest from the debt-based payment for the war. They also contend that the war and occupation of Iraq has led to rising oil prices, a higher national debt and higher related interest payments on the debt. In the following quotes they explain a couple of reasons (there are more in the article) for why their costs’ estimates have gone up.

But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. For example, the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating disabled veterans has proved higher than we expected.

“Moreover, two years on, it has become clear to us that our estimate did not capture what may have been the conflict's most sobering expenses: those in the category of "might have beens," or what economists call opportunity costs. For instance, many have wondered aloud whether, absent the Iraq invasion, we would still be stuck in Afghanistan. And this is not the only "what if" worth contemplating. We might also ask: If not for the war in Iraq, would oil prices have risen so rapidly? Would the federal debt be so high? Would the economic crisis have been so severe?

Second example: US troop casualties – In addition to the 4,426 deaths (source: http://icasualties.org), there were as of Oct 16, 2010, a total of 32,899 wounded US military soldiers and an additional 320,000 with brain injuries, with an unknown number of war veterans who had suffered concussions.

Lizette Alvaraz writes, in a lengthy New York Times article (Aug 26, 2008), that concussions are “a mild traumatic brain injury” caused by powerful explosions. Such injuries went unscreened until 2007. The symptoms of concussions include some combination of headaches, dizzy spells, persistent ringing in the ears, sometimes numbness in the arms, and memory loss. The symptoms do not immediately surface in all cases, but can be experienced in months after the injury occurred. Alavaraz writes that, according to the latest Pentagon estimates, “As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked…away from bases, have suffered at least one concussion. She writes, further: “…tens of thousands of [these soldiers] have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, a persistent memory loss, headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity.” She points out that it is impossible to know how many suffer from the symptoms of mild brain trauma because the Veterans Affairs Department only in recent years screened for it, because the criteria remain ambiguous, and because they may not surface right away.”

T. Christian Miller and Daniel Zwerdling provide further evidence on the scope of mild brain injuries in their article, “Pentagon Health Plan Won’t Cover Brain Damage,” printed on Common Dreams. Org, December 20, 2010 (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/20-5). Here are some excerpted paragraphs from this very long and well documented article.

“Official Pentagon figures show that 188,000 service members have suffered brain injuries since 2000. Of those, 44,000 suffered moderate or severe head injuries. Another 144,000 had mild traumatic brain injuries. However, previous ProPublica and NPR reports [13] [13] showed that number likely understates the true toll by tens of thousands of troops. Some estimates put the number of brain injuries at 400,000 service members.

“Mild traumatic brain injuries are the most common head trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan. Commonly caused by blast waves from roadside bombs, such injuries are defined as a blow to the head resulting in an alteration or loss of consciousness of less than 30 minutes. Studies suggest that while most troops with concussions heal quickly, some 5 percent to 15 percent go on to suffer lasting difficulties in memory, concentration and multitasking.

“For the military's health system, the costs of treating brain damaged soldiers with cognitive rehabilitative therapy added up quickly. If tens of thousands of service members and veterans were authorized to receive such treatment, the bill might be in the billions, using high-end estimates for the cost of treatment from the Brain Injury Association [14] [14].

“The costs could swell the Pentagon's annual $50 billion health budget -- at a time when Gates has said the military is being "eaten alive" by skyrocketing medical bills.

“Tricare ‘is basically an insurance company. They'll take no action to provide more service," said the person familiar with the conversation, who would only discuss it in general terms. "If they do it, it's an enormous cost.’”

Third example - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The following quote come from Jacquelin Shoen, “Wounds of War,” Oct 20, 2010 – http://www.majalla.com/en/ideas/article165470.ece?service=print

“As Emile Tracey’s account suggests, the number of veterans from the war returning with PTSD is staggering as well. The US Congress commissioned a yearlong study by military and civilian experts in response to the increasing suicide tally amongst veterans. “From 2005 to 2009, more than 1,100 members of the military killed themselves, with the highest tolls among Army soldiers and Marines carrying the burden on the battlefronts,” reported The New York Times. The article further noted that one in five veterans returning from the conflict report signs of PTSD and depression. However, less than half have sought treatment. What is maybe more alarming is that a 2007 survey of soldiers found that 17 percent of active-duty troops and 25 percent of reservists had screened positive for symptoms of stress disorder. In other words, not only are few of these individuals receiving treatment for the trauma of war, many are returning to war with potential consequences to their ability to recover.

“In an investigative report on the mental health issues facing the US army, TIME reporter Mark Thompson put it clearly when he said that “While its combat troops fight two wars, its mental-health professionals are waging a battle to save soldiers’ sanity when they come back, one that will cost billions long after combat ends in Baghdad and Kabul.”

The point: While President Obama and the US Congress should be given credit for the new veterans’ benefits, they also should be held accountable for the great harm wrought by the Iraq war– and Afghanistan war. The best way to avoid such catastrophes and atrocities is not to enter into or continue support for these wars or others being waged with US troops in Columbia, Yemen, Pakistan, and other places. The US government must set an example in international affairs that is based on the search for cooperation, justice, and peace rather than on force. We really can’t afford to continue in the old way, unless US citizens are willing to see their own circumstances and societal institutions driven into the ground. There are big, pressing environmental and economic challenges that beset us at home, and they are not being adequately addressed.

Andrew J. Bascevich makes some relevant points in the last paragraph of his book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War:

“Americans must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington Rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face to make learning – and perhaps even a course change – possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose” (p. 250).

Iraq war will not end with US troop withdrawal

2010-12-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

Juan Cole sees promise for a complete US military withdrawal from Iraq as a result of three developments. (“Iraq has a Government: Can we Please Come Home Now?” Informed Comment, 12-22-10).

First, the 50,000 troops still deployed in Iraq “are scheduled to be out of the country on December 31, 2011.” This deadline is reinforced by the “newly reinstalled prime minister Nuri al-Maliki...insisting that the deadline be met.”

Second, “the United Nations Security Council removed Chapter 7 restrictions on Iraq,” that is the long-standing sanctions first imposed on Iraq back in 1991. This means that in July of 2011, when the UN decision takes effect, Iraq “will again become a fully sovereign nation in the law.”

Third, Iraq has “finally formed a new government of national unity....” These “milestones” herald “good news” and “mean that the troops really can and likely will come home now.” Cole continues: “A long nightmare is coming to an end. Iraq has been Lebanonized and will likely be fragile for years, with occasional bombings and attacks. But it can now muddle through on its own.”

The Iraq war has indeed been a nightmare for US decision-makers, US troops, US citizens/taxpayers, the mounting US debt. It has also been an illegal war that has set a perverse example to other nations and generated anger and hatred toward the United States among many people in the Middle East and in Muslim countries elsewhere. In his new book, War is a Lie, David Swanson refers to the research of Michael Haas, who “identifies and documents 263 war crimes, in addition to aggression, that have occurred just in the current War on Iraq, and divides them into the categories of ‘conduct of war,’ ‘treatment of prisoners,’ ‘and ‘the conduct of the postwar occupation’” (p. 309-310).

As Cole implies here and explicates in other posts, the war does not end for the Iraqi people even when, and if, the US troops go home. But the word “fragile” does not capture the full effects of the war (and the sanctions) on Iraq and its citizens (see examples below). Furthermore, many of the last American troops that may come home at the end of 2011, and the troops that have preceded them, in the hundreds of thousands in all, will require costly health and psychological treatment for many years, and in some cases their whole lives. The war does not end for them, their families, or for the society as a whole.

Here I list only examples and quotes from sources that focus on the situation of Iraq and its citizens. They represent a legacy of the US-initiated and –led war and occupation. What does this have to do with Afghanistan? Wherever US military forces wage war, civilians suffer, whether directly or indirectly.

Agriculture - “By August 2009, the New York Times reported that the once-rich agricultural system had been so devastated ‘during the past few years’ (that is, during the U.S. occupation) that ‘there are increasing doubts about whether it makes much sense to grow dates – or much of anything for that matter.’ (Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects, 2010).

Electricity - “Iraqis promised development with the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the arrival of the U.S. are now suffering a lack of development as never before. And where it hurts every moment is through the collapse of power supply.” “More than seven years into the U.S. occupation, most Iraqis lack electricity, leading to demonstrations in towns and cities across the country.” “The problems since 2003 have been far worse” (Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail, After Flase Promises, the Heat in On in Iraq, http://dahrjamail.com/after-false-promises-the-heat-is-on-inIraq#more-1990).

Housing - “By United Nations estimates, Iraq has 2.8 million housing units for a population of 30 million, leaving a shortage of about 1.3 million homes. As the population continues to grow, the country needs to build 3.5 million housing units — more than doubling its stock — by 2015, said Istabraq I. al-Shouk, the senior deputy minister of construction and housing (John Leland, “Cramped Quarters Define Struggles of Iraqi Families, NYT, Feb 27, 2010).

Water - According to government statistics cited by the ICRC, one in four of Iraq’s 30 million people does not have access to safe drinking water” (Julia Apland Hitz, “Water, Another Crisis for Iraq,” Earth Institute, June 17, 2010 – http://blogs.eicolumbia.edu/2010/06/17/water-another-crisis-for-Iraq).

Uranium depletion effects- “Months of bombing during the first Gulf War by the United States and Great Britain left a deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the United States hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles (Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, “Iraq Wrecked Environment,” Counterpunch, May 1-3, 2009)

Cluster bomb effects - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Iraq: Local NGOs welcome cluster bomb ban,” Feb 18, 2010 - BAGHDAD, 18 February 2010 (IRIN) - Iraqi NGOs working in the field of landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance have welcomed the ratification of an international convention banning the use of cluster bombs. (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SHIG-82SHXW?Open Document&RSS20&RSS20=FS). However:

Ali Jawad Kati, who heads the Baghdad-based NGO Aysen, which raises awareness about mine risks says: “millions of bomblets dispersed by cluster bombs were still scattered across the country as a result of the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 US-led invasion.” “In Baghdad 331 areas are affected by cluster bomb debris, mostly from the 2003 war….Welfare runs out – “Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows' benefits, farm crops and other programs for the poor, the parliament leader told lawmakers, who have collected nearly $180,000 so far this year in one of the world's most oil-rich nations” (Lara Jakes, “Welfare funding runs out in Iraq,” AP News, Nov 21, 2010).

Missing billions and serious health rates - Juan Gonzalez, on Democracy Now - “We turn now to news from Iraq, where an official audit by the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction found that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $9 billion taken from Iraqi oil revenues between 2004 and 2007 for use in reconstruction. The report comes amidst continuing Iraqi concerns that, seven years since the US-led invasion, the billions of dollars pumped into reconstruction have failed to rebuild the country’s ravaged infrastructure.” “Meanwhile, a new medical study has found dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004. The rates of infant mortality and cancer exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945” (Andrew Cockburn interviewed on Democracy Now on “the missing billions in Iraq and soaring cancer and infant mortality rates,” July 29, 2010).

Devastation, Not Liberation - The US leaders said that we were invading Iraq to “liberate” it. Tom Engelhardt summarizes in the following paragraph from his book, The American Way of War (2010) the “devastation” that US forces brought to the country.

“Since then, Saddam Hussein’s killing fields have been dwarfed by a fierce set of destructive US military operations, as well as insurgencies cum-civil-wars-cum-terrorist-acts: major cities have been largely or partially destroyed, or ethnically cleansed; millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes, becoming internal refugees or going into exile; untold numbers of Iraqis have been imprisoned, assassinated, tortured, or abused; and the country’s cultural heritage has been ransacked. Basic services – electricity, water, food – were terribly impaired and the economy was simply wrecked. Health services were crippled. Oil production upon which Iraq now depends for up to 90 percent of its government funds, has only relatively recently barely surpassed the worst levels of the pre-invasion era” (155)

US troop brutality – some sources

See Dahr Jamail, “Iraq War Vet: ‘We Were Told Just to Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us,” Truthout, April 7, 2010

Wikileaks releases would further confirm this the summer of 2010….
Pervasive Violence – see Kamil Mahdi, “What the Wikileaks don’t reveal, Stop the War Coalition, 10-24-10 – http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2117/1/

More on violence – Pratap Chatterjee, “Wikileaks Iraq War Logs Reveal Private Military Contractors Killing With Impunity, Alternet.org, Oct. 25, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/1485941

Number of excess Iraqi deaths - Swanson refers to the findings of two “serious” studies. Here are his comments on one of them. “The second serious study of deaths caused by the War on Iraq was a poll of 2,000 Iraqi adults conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) in August 2007. ORB estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to the War, on Iraq: ’48 percent died from a gunshot wound, 20 percent from the impact of a car bomb, 9 percent from aerial bombardment, 6 percent as a result of an accident, and 6 percent from another blast/ordnance” (War is a Lie, 220).

Soaring Cancer rates in Fallujah - David Edwards, “The Non-Reporting of Fallujah’s Cancer Catastrophe,” Znet,Sept., 12, 2010, makes the following points.

“After all, the cancer crisis reported in the study is impacting thousands of people in one of Iraq's largest cities and is so severe that local doctors are advising women not to have children.

“In the Independent, Patrick Cockburn wrote:

‘Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.’ (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html)

Millions of refugees - Fred Branfman – http://www.alternet.org/story/147281, June 22, 1010:

“’Counting both internal and external refugees, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that nearly 5 million of Iraq’s population of 24 million have been uprooted during the conflict,’ the N.Y. Review of Books reported on May 13, 2010. This is the equivalent of 60 million Americans by percentage of population. Five-hundred thousand are homeless squatters within Iraq, whose ‘settlements all lack basic services, including water, sanitation and electricity and are built in precarious places -- under bridges, alongside railroad tracks and amongst garbage dumps’ according to Refugees International in March 2010. The emigration of 2-3 million Iraqis to refugee camps in Syria and other Mideast countries decimated Iraq's educated middle class, with some daughters forced to become prostitutes and sons menial laborers just to keep their families alive.”

Iraqi children – a humanitarian and educational crisis – from Save the Children: Iraq, July 2009 (includes the entire, unedited post from: http://www.savethechildren.org)

“Although the violence that followed the invasion of Iraq by multi-national forces in 2003 has ebbed and flowed, Iraq remains within the top five humanitarian emergencies in the world. Children continue to suffer from the psychological trauma of war and conflict, and access to education and development opportunities has been severely constrained.

“As an example, in the northern part of Iraq (where Save the Children is currently operating) 15 schools host operations for 43 separate institutions — that is, most schools serve three to four shifts of students per day, for a few hours at a time. Besides overcrowding, these schools lack a clean water supply, sanitation and garbage disposal systems — as do many of the communities in which the schools are based.

“In the south of the country, including Basra, the situation is more acute. In particular, access to fresh water remains a key issue due to the use of a brackish water supply in Basra. Exacerbating the situation, temperatures can reach 140 F during the summer. Because of the salty residue, the water supply needs to go through a complex process of desalinization and purification, which is costly, time consuming and not always effective. It remains another obstacle for children in obtaining a quality education and having a healthy childhood.”

Iraq – a country of orphans

John Tirman estimated in Feb. 2009 that there were 5 million orphans. See John Terman, “4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans,” The Nation, Feb 2, 2009
Editor-in-Chief: Saad Albazzaz, “Iraq a country of Orphans,” Azzaman.com, September 13, 2010:

“One in every six Iraqis is an orphan. That is the toll Iraqi children are paying in a country which is supposedly under the occupation and protection of the world’s only superpower.

“Not all the orphans are the result of the violence that swept the country in the aftermath of the 2003-U.S. invasion.

“But the invasion has caused untold miseries for Iraqis, surpassing those inflicted on them by their former tormentors, the clique that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

“There were unconfirmed reports that Iraq has turned into a country of orphans. But the exact figure only became a reality recently, when the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs made public its own statistics.

“The statistics points to dangerous demographics with grave social, health and economic consequences for a country which still lacks basic infrastructure.

“ These are the voiceless Iraqis. Their U.S. occupiers have almost cut and run and their Iraqi rulers are not so much concerned about their livelihood and well-being.

“In a violent country like Iraq, where U.S. marines with bullet-proof jackets and thick armor, cannot feel safe, there is not so much room for an orphan.

“Hundreds of thousands of them live on the street. There is no social security system to look after them.”

Children – PSID (post-traumatic stress disorder) -- “The great number of Iraqi children affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the saddest, and least known, legacies of the Iraq war. That a new clinic for their treatment opened last August in Baghdad is the first of its kind says a lot about how this problem is being addressed. Until now, hundreds of children suffering from PTSD have been treated by Dr. Haider Maliki at the Central Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. Hundreds of thousands remain untreated” (Cesar Chelala, “Iraqi Children Bear the Costs of War,” CommonDreams.org, March 5, 2010).

Imprisonment – Tens of thousands of Iraqi men spent years in American prisons. Most of the prisons and prisoners have been transferred to the Iraqis, who are known for the brutal treatment of prisoners. (Leila Fadel, “Some worry about abuse as U.S. hands over final detention center to Iraq,” Washington Post Foreign Service, July 16, 2010).
Democracy Now interview with Malcolm Smart on Amnesty International of Abuses in Iraqi Prisons, Sept 20, 2010:

Amy Goodman: Amnesty International has released a new report that finds more than 30,000 prisoners are being held in Iraq without charge, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. Amnesty’s report is called "New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq."

Torture - Tim Branfman reports: “Tens of thousands of innocents imprisoned, many tortured: “In an article headlined "In Iraq, A Prison Full of Innocent Men, the Washington Post reported that ‘100,000 prisoners have passed through the American-run detention system in Iraq,’ that Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi says that ‘most of the people they detain are innocent’ but that prisoners are not permitted to prove their innocence. Conditions have been even worse in the secret torture chambers run for five years by General Stanley McChrystal, from which all outside observers including the Red Cross have been excluded. Salon's Glenn Greenwald recently reported that ‘72% of Guantanamo detainees who finally were able to obtain just minimal due process -- after years of being in a cage without charges -- have been found by federal judges to be wrongfully detained.’ Countless innocent Iraqis have been regularly tortured.”

The situation of women and girls has deteriorated - Nadje Al-Ali, “The Iraq Legacy: Millions of Women’s Lives Destroyed,” Alter Net.com, March 31, 2008 – (http://www.alternet.org/story/80609) [Also Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt’s book, What Kind of Liberation?: Women and the Occupation of Iraq.]

“In fact, Iraq's women have become the biggest losers in the post-invasion disaster. While men have borne the brunt in terms of direct armed violence, women have been particularly hard-hit by poverty, malnutrition, lack of health services and a crumbling infrastructure, not least chronic power cuts which in some areas of Iraq see electricity only available for two hours a day.

“More than 70 percent of the four million people forced out of their homes in the past five years in Iraq have been women and children. Many have found temporary shelter with relatives who share their limited space, food and supplies. But this, according to the UN refugee agency, has created ‘rising tension between families over scarce resources.’ Many displaced women and children find themselves in unsanitary and overcrowded public buildings under constant threat of eviction.

“Meanwhile, rampant political violence has also engulfed women in Iraq. Islamist militias with links to political parties in government and insurgent groups opposing both the government and the occupation have particularly targeted Iraqi women and girls. A new Islamist puritanism is seeing women and girls being violently pressured to conform to rigid dress codes. Personal movement and social behaviour are being ‘regulated,’ with acid attacks (deliberately designed to disfigure ‘transgressive’ women's faces), just one of the sanctions of the new moral guardians of post-Saddam Iraq.”

President Obama's speech is misleading

2010-12-21T10:09:00.000-08:00

President Obama read from a five-page summary of US policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday, December 16 (2010). The title of the summary document is “Overview of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review. The president does his best to bring an upbeat message to Americans and to defend the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan. But then he says this occupation/war will continue until at least 2014 and perhaps “beyond.” Overall, his rhetoric and evidence are unconvincing.

He shamefully echoes former-president Bush’s rationale for the Afghan invasion and occupation in some instances, when he says that the “core goals” of the US-led Afghanistan occupation is to defeat “al-Qa-ida,” that is, “to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qa-ida” and “to prevent its return to either country” (i.e., Afghanistan or Pakistan). The evidence overwhelmingly challenges the idea that al-Qaeda is the principal threat to the creation of a stable Afghanistan. There are few Afghans affiliated with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The President maintains that al-Qaeda poses a direct threat to the US. He says: “Al-Qa-ida continues its terrorist plotting…against the United States and our allies and partners.”

Eliminating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan will not end the threat of random terrorist attacks on the US or any other country. The roots of such terrorism stem from rage over the US-led occupations and wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan, support for dictatorial Middle East regimes (e.g., Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan), and the one-sided support of the long-standing US support of Israeli oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. (Juan Cole has documented this point many times on his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. Also see: David Wildman and Phyllis Bennis' book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan.)

Experts point out that Al-Qaeda is a decentralized international network located in various parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, and some “developing countries” (e.g., Indonesia), but it does not have a consolidated center. The President does acknowledge, “There are a range of other groups, including some affiliated with al-Qa-ida, as well as individuals inspired by al-Qa-ida, who to do harm to our nation and our allies.” (See, for example, Loretta Napaleoni’s new book, The Politics of Fear: How Fighting Terrorism is Bankrupting the World and Making US Less Safe, Seven Stories Press, 2010.)

The major opponents of the foreign US and allied occupiers come from Afghan participants variously associated with the “Taliban,” a category that includes separate, uncoordinated, groups from mainly the Pashtun population of the country. Grievances are local and often responses to the ground and escalating air attacks of the American forces, and to a war that has produced tens of thousands of Afghan refugees, further destruction of infrastructure and communities, widespread corruption, and little reconstruction.

As a consequence, Afghanistan has one of the poorest and most deprived populations in the world. Kathy Kelly provides a glimpse of Afghan impoverishment and the counterproductive use of increasingly destructive weaponry by US forces in an article on Antiwar.com, December 10, 2010:

“In Afghanistan, a nation where 850 children die every day, about a quarter of the population goes hungry. The UN says that 7.4 million Afghans live with hunger and fear of starvation, while millions more rely on food help, and one in five children die before the age of five.

"’Do you think we like to live this way?’ an Afghan man asked me, last October, as he led us toward a primitive tent encampment on the outskirts of Kabul. ‘Do you see how we live? The cold and the rain are coming. How will we protect our children?’ He flicked his forefinger on a weather-beaten blanket covering a tent. The blanket immediately ripped.”
[….]

“Inside one of the tents, a young mother welcomed me to sit down on the only available cushion. It appeared that they slept on the ground. The families share one pot over a fire pit, and a few utensils. They also have access to a water pump. Near their area is a tent where they join for prayers, and also one that is used for classes. One man begged us to tell the authorities that they have no medicines in the camp and that many of the children are ill.
[…]

“Although the U.S. military forbids soldiers to mutilate corpses and go on killing sprees that target civilians, the U.S. occupying forces in Afghanistan have bragged, in recent weeks, about increased capacities to kill with ever more invulnerable weapons. A company of 16 Abrams tanks was recently delivered to Afghanistan. ‘We’ve taken the gloves off,’ said an unnamed U.S. military official, ‘and it has had huge impact.’ (Washington Post, November 19, 2010) The 68-ton tanks fire high explosive, white phosphorus and anti-personnel shells that can destroy a house a mile away. Each tank costs 4.3 million dollars and uses 3 gallons of jet fuel per mile.

“The Pentagon is also sending 12,500 XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapons to Afghanistan, one to each infantry squad and Special Forces team in Afghanistan. The XM25 gun can fire a projectile that will travel the length of eight football fields. ‘When fired, the projectile is designed to explode directly above a target,’ says the Army Times, ‘raining shrapnel down on an enemy crouched behind cover.’

“In a report to the November 2010 NATO conference held in Lisbon, 29 aid groups working in Afghanistan warned that the increases in air attacks, the use of night raids, and the destruction of civilian property contributes to ‘rapidly deteriorating" security for most Afghans and a rise in civilian casualties. People who flee from U.S. attacks face food insecurity, loss of income, lack of health care, and homelessness. The aid groups’ report is entitled ‘Nowhere to Turn.’ Increasingly, Afghans living in war zones have nowhere to hide.”

The president claims that US and allied forces are “degrading the Taliban insurgency,” another unsubstantiated claim. Unsurprisingly, as noted above, there is nothing in Obama’s annual review of the conditions in Afghanistan concerning civilian casualties, devastation of those parts of the country invaded by US and allied forces, or the ever-more destructive weaponry employed by these forces in places identified as war zones. And the insurgency is growing. Tom Anderson reports in an article for CommonDreams.org, Dec. 16, 2010, evidence that contradicts President Obama’s claim of degrading the insurgency. Anderson writes:

“A U.S. intelligence estimate presented to President Obama in October 2009 showed that the number of fighters in the insurgency had ballooned to 25,000 from only 7,000 in 2006. Now Matt Waldman, former Head of Policy and Advocacy for Oxfam International in Afghanistan, reports that "today [the NATO force] estimates the Taliban as 35,000 to 40,000. One of the points we have to bear in mind is they have a very large pool of recruits inside Afghanistan and Pakistan."

In the meantime, security is down and violence is up, according to Anderson’s sources.

“Nationwide, security in Afghanistan has not improved. According to the Pentagon's own report to Congress in November 2010, the portion of the population living in districts with a ‘satisfactory' security rating "remains relatively unchanged over the past three quarters." In fact, "the number of Afghans rating their security situation as ‘bad' is the highest since the nationwide survey began in September 2008. This downward trend in security perception is likely due to the steady increase in total violence over the past nine months."

“Violence has dramatically increased in Afghanistan over the last year. Kinetic events -- Pentagon speak for violence -- "are up 300 percent since 2007 and up an additional 70 percent since 2009." The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office reports a 59% increase in insurgent-led attacks in the 3rd quarter of this year over and above the 2009 level. They state: "By any measure 2010 has been the most violent year since ANSO's records began in 2002."

“Any progress toward increased security in the south has been more than offset by increased violence elsewhere in Afghanistan. Insurgent attacks in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan "rose 200% in June compared with June 2009." There are reports that "in northern Afghanistan, security has been deteriorating for the past two years in Kunduz and surrounding provinces" and that "the Taliban also have spread their influence in western Afghanistan and now control several districts."

President Obama’s review of conditions in Afghanistan are similarly dubious on a number of his other claims; for example that US forces are “supporting Afghanistan’s efforts to better improve national and sub-national governance.” Andrews refutes this claim as follows.

“Corruption runs rampant, fueling the insurgency. The Pentagon's own polling from September 2010 ‘shows that 80.6 percent of Afghans polled believe corruption affects their daily lives. This is consistent with the view that corruption is preventing the Afghan Government from connecting with the people and remains a key reason for Afghans supporting the insurgency...’

“As the New York Times reported, after a meeting with President Karzai's brother, Ahmed Walid Karzai, Ambassador Eikenberry wrote that ‘one of our major challenges in Afghanistan [is] how to fight corruption and connect the people to their government, when the key government officials are themselves corrupt.’

“And just this past weekend, Afghanistan's Attorney General asked their Supreme Court to nullify the results of recent parliamentary elections due to allegations of fraud and to ‘issue sentences against 14 top officials who organized the vote and oversaw fraud investigations.’”
And, furthermore, Andrews adds:

“Nationwide, governance has not expanded. The Pentagon reports that only ‘38 percent of the population live in areas rated as having ‘emerging' or ‘full authority' Afghan governance. This reflects no substantial change since March 2010.’ ‘Shadow governments’ run by insurgent forces continue to operate in many parts of the south and east, ‘extracting taxes and carrying out ‘official' functions like trials and determining land and marriage disputes.’”

There are other downbeat rather than upbeat issues that Obama omits from his speech. Wasted US aid: Patrick Cockburn documents the “billions down the drain in useless US Afghan aid” (Counter Punch, Dec. 13, 2010). Mounting US debt: the costs of the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq (it’s not over) are undermining the American economy and helping to deepen the US national debt.

In another article, this one for The Independent (Dec 18, 2010), Cockburn provides the words for ending this post and implicitly indicating how misleading Obama’s speech is. Cockburn writes:

“Afghans are adept at concealing their real views. A government official was giving me a bland account of his ministry's activities. Bored, I asked if there was anything he would like to say to me unattributably. ‘Well’, he said, without changing his smooth tone of voice, ‘there is no chance of any progress here so long as our country is run by gangsters and warlords.’ But it is to keep these same people in power that the US and Britain are now fighting a war.”

Why all the wars and military spending?

2010-12-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

Never under-estimate the power of military interests and values on the American people and US government, however misguided, self-serving, and counterproductive such interests and values may be. The forces in the United States that support of war, or a military-oriented foreign policy, are strong and unabated.

In the United States, unfortunately, there are many powerful groups, communities, and just ordinary citizens that support a militarized foreign policy. Why? Many parts of the US have benefited from the Iraq War financially, ideologically, psychologically, and/or politically. Consider the following list of items that exemplify my point.

(1) The military budget continues to climb and far overshadows military expenditures by any other nation-state.

(2) The corporations associated with the huge military-industrial complex continue to increase their sales and profits.

(3) The military-industrial complex thrives on wars, however reckless, costly in resources and to people, and counterproductive they are.

(4)The President along with too many elected officials in the U.S. Congress advance a bipartisan, pro-war budget and agenda and have won votes for their campaigns as a result. Here is a tangential example, among many available in the critical literature.

“In 2005 and 2006 while Republicans held a majority in Congress, Democratic Congress members led by John Conyers (Mich.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) pushed hard for an investigation into the lies that had launched the aggression against Iraq. But from the time the Democrats took the majority in January 2007 up to the present moment, there has been no further mention of the matter, apart from a Senate committee’s release of its long-delayed report” (David Swanson, War Is a Lie, p. 303).

(5)The large veterans’ organizations typically defend the militarized foreign policy of the US government.

(6 )Thousands of communities across the United States and in virtually all congressional districts support the government’s large military budgets, especially when they have military bases in their areas or local business with contracts to produce weapons or military-related supplies. The benefits are in employment, additional taxes, and spurs to the local economy. In his many important books, Seymour Melman, among others, documents this point - and many others.

(7) Burgeoning private firms prosper that provide services to the troops, security to embassies and officials, experienced former soldiers for special operations, and intelligence to the military. Jeremy Scahill's book, Blackwater, provides a well documented analysis of a growing, and very profitable"mercenary army."

(8) Millions of citizens who pride themselves on being patriotic have adopted the idea that military force is the only way to protect America and its interests here and abroad. Here is a sad commentary on the US culture from David Swanson’s new book, War Is a Lie.

“We are more saturated with militarism than ever before. The military and its support industries eat up an increasingly larger share of the economy, providing jobs intentionally spread across all congressional districts. Military recruiters and recruitment advertising are ubiquitous. Sporting events on television welcome ‘members of the United States armed forces viewing in 177 nations around the world’ and nobody blinks. When wars begin, the government does whatever it has to do to persuade enough of the public to support the wars. Once the public turns against wars, the government just as effectively resists pressure to bring them to a swift end. Some years into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a majority of Americans told pollsters it had been a mistake to begin either of those wars. But easily manipulated majorities had supported those mistakes when they were made” (p. 10).

(9) The terror-complex. A widely held view in the United States is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were necessary to forestall and ultimately defeat international Islamic terrorism. These misbegotten goals generate fear and submissiveness in the population but also opportunities for the creation and expansion of yet more profitable and career-enhancing opportunities. Chris Hedges provides a glimpse of this in her article, “The Terror-Industrial Complex,” truthdig.com, February 8, 2010.

“It is difficult to get a fair trial in this country if the government wants to accuse you of terrorism,” said Foster. “It is difficult to get a fair trial on any types of charges. The government is allowed to tell the jury you are a terrorist before you have to put on any evidence. The fear factor that has emerged since 9/11 has permeated into the U.S. court system in a profoundly disturbing way. It embraces the idea that we can compromise core principles, for example the presumption of innocence, based on perceived threats that may or may not come to light. We, as a society, have chosen to cave on fear.”

“I spent more than a year covering al-Qaida for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. The threat posed by Islamic extremists, while real, is also wildly overblown, used to foster a climate of fear and political passivity, as well as pump billions of dollars into the hands of the military, private contractors, intelligence agencies and repressive client governments including that of Pakistan. The leader of one FBI counterterrorism squad told The New York Times that of the 5,500 terrorism-related leads its 21 agents had pursued over the past five years, just 5 percent were credible and not one had foiled an actual terrorist plot. These statistics strike me as emblematic of the entire war on terror.

“Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us.

(10) The media are by and large an echo chamber of the official war narratives – Check out these two books, for example: Anthony Dimaggio, When Media Goes to War, and Norman Solomon’s War Made Easy.

Additionally, in his book War is a Lie, David Swanson comments on the role of the media: “The approach of the US corporate media to war coverage is to feature lots of ‘experts’ on war. By ‘experts’ they clearly mean high-ranking military officials, current or retired. But if the question is whether or not to go to war, or whether or not to continue war, or whether or not to escalate war, then why aren’t experts at peace making as relevant as experts at war making? In fact, why aren’t they more relevant, given our supposed preference for peace, its legality, and the ongoing pretense of civilian control over our military? The military can offer expertise on how to start and fight a way, but should it be considered to have any authority on whether to start a war?” (p. 252).

(11) Think tanks (some) provide rationales for war. Derek Leebaert provides the following examples in his book Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.
“Think tankers who double as advisers to the military – including Frederick Kagan and his spouse, Kimberly Kagan, who runs a new organization, ‘the Institute for the Study of War’ – wrote an op-ed…stating, ‘There is no doubt that we can succeed against the much weaker foes,’ comparing the Afghan insurgents dismissively to those in Iraq. Brookings expert Michael O’Hanlon and participated from the CSIS, Brookings, and the AEI to urge ‘significant escalation’ as they unanimously insisted ‘there is no alternative to victory’” (p. 243).

My reaction:
Despite the forces for a strong military and an empire built on a thousand or so military bases in countries across the planet, the voices and groups in favor of a non-militarized society and a peace-oriented and just national agenda continue.

In this regard, by the way, Wikileaks is a channel of information about the machinations and bumblings of the US government and military that enhance the information available to these dissidents and activites. Wikileaks is fundamentally opposed to the Security State.

Voices from Afghanistan demanding an immediate withdrawal of US troops

2010-12-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

After my two paragraphs, I reproduce a very moving and powerful letter from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans for Peace It does not mince words. With illuminating clarity, the letter calls for a withdrawal of US and allied troops immediately. The costs of the occupation are just too great. The letter offers a profound antithesis to President Obama's upbeat message to America on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010, in which the President insists that the occupation in Afghanistan is succeeding and that the US will remain in Afghanistan until at least 2014 and perhaps "beyond."

The President did not allude to polls of Afghan opinions or, for that matter, to recent polls of American opinion. Nor did he refer to the ongoing devastation of the country by an escalated US airwar, US special forces, undisciplined Afghan police and soldiers, Afghan warlords, or to the mounting civilian casualties and displaced persons among the Afghan people, or to the increasing casualties among US troops. President Obama insisted that our core goal is to wipe out al Qaeda, and to do this safe havens for al Qaeda in Pakistan must be eliminated, one way or another. In the meantime, US generals are suggesting yet more US troops are necessary to reign in the Taliban, a category implicitly covering diverse Afghan insurgent groups, to overcome widespread corruption, as well as to stamping out al Qaeda once and for all, which is a pipe dream given the decentralized nature of the group and how, according to many experts, most of the violence in Afghanistan is waged by local, not international, groups.

We Want You Out: An Open Letter from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans for Peace

Friday 17 December 2010

by: Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, t r u t h o u t Op-Ed

Voices for Creative Nonviolence representatives in Kabul are privileged to be meeting with representatives of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV), a group of teenagers based in Bamiyan, Afghanistan who campaign to promote nonviolence. As the Obama administration releases its December review of the US war in Afghanistan, the AYPV, along with Afghans for Peace, have issued a review of their experiences. To express support for their letter, follow this link.

To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the "Taliban/Al-Qaeda" and regional countries:

We are intolerably angry.

All our senses are hurting.

Our women, our men and, yes, shame on you, our children, are grieving.

Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.
President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?

America's $250 million annual communications budget just to scream propaganda on this war of perceptions, with its nauseating rhetoric mimicked by Osama and other warlords, is powerless before the silent wailing of every anemic mother.

We will no longer be passive prey to your disrespectful systems of oligarchic, plutocratic war against the people.

Your systems feed the rich and powerful. They are glaringly unequal. They do not listen, do not think, and, worst, they do not care.

We choose not to gluttonize with you. We choose not to be trained by you. We choose not to be pawned by you.

We henceforth refuse every weapon you kill us with, every dollar you bait us with and every lie you manipulate us with.

We are not beasts.

We are Afghans, Americans, Europeans, Asians and global citizens.

Yes, you have the false, self-appointed power to arrest us over expressing the public opinion of ordinary folk, students, farmers, shepherds, laborers, teachers, doctors … people who now have nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide.

This world public opinion against the Afghan war has been clearly expressed and is larger than any number of Wikileaks you seek to suppress. So, come arrest us all as we civilly disobey you.
Come arrest us all.

Yes, you have the army, police and apparatchik to smother us and to bribe those who are Pavlov-reflexed to money, but you cannot stop us from restoring our voice.

We refuse to prostitute our hearts and minds.

We refuse you.

Not you the human person, but you the greedy system of self-interested power.

Again and again here in Afghanistan, we have seen a hope for nonviolence light up; every day we see a yearning for humane relationships, and because of this, love is how we now firmly take our stand.

We will listen to the People on December 19th, on the Global Day of Listening to Afghans, and we invite every one of you to pick up your phone to call us, to share one another's pain, and to call our world to urgent reconciliation. We invite the world public opinion to overwhelm us! Email youthpeacevolunteers@gmail.com to arrange a call.

We wish to invite all the people of the world because when the powers are not listening to the people, listening becomes an act of love, it becomes a solidarity of nonviolent resistance.
How can we do any less?

14-year-old Abdulai's father was killed by the "Taliban" and so, like every other human being, he copes with sorrow, hate, fear and anger.

But he wakes up to the chronic war days in his land sensing that "something is very wrong with the world I'm caught up in"; "these elders of the world are not getting it."

How does trillion-deficit killing, followed by the strategy of escalated killing and yet another review for more killing, work?

How does it make anyone safer?

How does it solve the incorruptible corruption, unequalled inequality and inviolate violence we face daily?

Your policies, skewed-ly "diagnosed" and "reviewed" in a cold, clinical manner divorced from reality, have been deaf to the concerns and needs of the people; thus we endeavor to have a People's Afghanistan December Review, because that's what ordinary people can do.

We would try not to "throw" our shoes at you. We would try to recognize the better side of all human beings and thus continue to serve our commoner's tea and bread to one and all. But we do ask, plead and demand that you stop your unsustainable, superpower militarism.

We want peace.

We want you out.

With singular sincerity,

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Afghans for Peace

Quote from Malalia Joya: My people, the suppressed millions, are my heroes. They are the real source of any positive change in Afghanistan and their power is stronger than anything else. And anti-war protesters around the world, those who are standing against the destructive policies of world powers. There is a superpower in the world besides the US government - world public opinion. -Malalai Joya

Excerpts from Wikipedia's entry on "International public opinion on the war in Afghanistan":

International public opinion is largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan.

The 25-nation Pew Global Attitudes survey in June 2009 reported that majorities or pluralities in 18 out of 25 countries want U.S. and NATO to remove their military troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Despite American calls for NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, there was majority or plurality opposition to such action in every one of the NATO countries surveyed: Germany (63% opposition), France (62%), Poland (57%), Canada (55%), Britain (51%), Spain (50%), and Turkey (49%).

In Europe, poll after poll in France, Germany and even Britain show that the European public want their troops to be pulled out and less money spent on the war in Afghanistan

ABC News/BBC/ARD/Washington Post poll of 1,691 Afghan adults from October 29-November 13, 2010

Afghans indicated they were more pessimistic about the direction of their country, less confident about US-led coalition troops providing security and more willing to negotiate with the Taliban than a year ago. More than half of Afghans interviewed said US and NATO forces should begin withdrawing from the country in mid-2011 or sooner.

Malalai Joya:

There are the occupation forces from the sky, dropping cluster bombs and depleted uranium, and on the ground there are the fundamentalist warlords and the Taliban, with their own guns.

If I should die, and you should choose to carry on my work, you are welcome to visit my grave. Pour some water on it and shout three times. I want to hear your voice. - Malalai Joya

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV), a group of teenagers based in Bamiyan

Two levels in understanding US Afghanistan War

2010-12-09T08:26:00.000-08:00

Two levels for understanding US Afghanistan War
Post for stopafghanwar

There are two levels for understanding the US-led and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan.

One level deals with news and analysis about current developments and debates about US troop casualties, whether troop levels are sufficient, whether US forces are making military progress (or is there light at the end of the tunnel), whether the Afghan elections are honest (or just how dishonest), whether the Karzai government is totally corrupt or only partially so, whether the special forces and unmanned drones and other destructive tactics are counterproductive with the goals of counterinsurgency, whether and to what extent the “Taliban” is gaining the support of the Afghan people, whether or how much private contractors are exploiting US taxpayer funds, whether the US military is forced to pay lucrative bribes to Taliban forces and certain tribal groups just to allow military supplies to get to their destinations, how long the US-led occupation will last, whether there will be a need for additional “surges,” and so forth, like, what’s with the training efforts of Afghan police and army and what is Pakistan up to. US think tanks and policy advisers are constantly offering ideas on how to deal with one or more of these problems.

Here is an example of analysis at this level. Juan Cole, the expert commentator on the Afghanistan situation – and much more – provides the following post on Dec 3, 2010, from his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. The title: “The Karzai Problem in Afghanistan: Wikileaks”

“The bodies of the six US troops — killed Monday by a newly recruited Afghan border guard who turned Taliban — arrived back in the United States late Wednesday. That 6 US soldiers were killed in one day was generally not news on the so-called news networks, though of course the major print media reported it.

“The troubling question is what they died fighting for. My own hypothesis is that the US is still in Afghanistan at this late date mainly to shore up the central government of President Hamid Karzai.

“But Karzai is himself extremely problematic. According to cables released by Wikileaks, and summarized by the Guardian, Karzai is prone to paranoid conspiracy theories, believes that the US is animated by sinister motives such as breaking up Pakistan and undermining Afghanistan, and is erratic and corrupt. He blithely just released 5 notorious drug runners captured by the US and turned over to him. He accused the US of funding the presidential campaign of his rival, Abdallah Abdallah, in the fall of 2009.

“Gen. David Petraeus is quoted as admitting that Karzai is “weak” but saying it is better to leave him there.

“But the problem with Karzai is not that he is weak. Rather it is that he is corrupt and believes in conspiracy theories, and the combination of the two causes him to act high-handedly and improperly.

“And here is the moral question: Is it right to ask US warriors to fight and die to prop up the administration of Hamid Karzai?
“And, how likely is it that Afghanistan National Army officers and troops are going to risk their lives for someone who is paranoid, erratic and corrupt?

“In short, the whole strategy of the US, of rapidly training Afghan security forces who could establish order in the country, assumes that the Afghanistan National Army and the police will be loyal to Karzai. But how likely is that?

“PS Wikileaks was down Thursday evening but went live with a new dns early Friday morning. The 600 or so State Department cables so far releasedcan be searched here.”

There is nothing wrong with this first level of analysis. As in Cole’s many posts, they are absolutely necessary to help us keep abreast of events in this war-torn and devastated country. Another level of analysis, which Cole well understands and writes about in some other posts, articles, and a book, deals with more fundamental strategic and political-economic forces. David Williams and Phyllis Bennis provide an example of this perspective in their book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer, which is an outstanding reference book for learning about a host of important questions and answers on Afghanistan. They write as follows.

“While Afghanistan has only relatively small reserves of strategic resources, it is located smack in the middle of the oil- and gas-rich Central Asia/Caspian Sea Basin region. Land-locked Afghanistan has a millennial history as part of the trade and cultural exchange of the Silk Road, and in the modern world remains a strategic transit point for its resource-rich neighbors to get oil and gas to far-off markets. The US relationship with Afghanistan both pre- and post-9/11…has been grounded in the potential for these oil and natural gas pipelines.

“Afghanistan’s neighbors are also almost all of strategic interest to the US. US tensions with Pakistan and Iran dominate the southern east-to-west arc of Afghanistan’s frontier. Dependence on airbases, access to natural gas and oil, and especially competition – resource-driven and otherwise – with an ascendant Russia…shape US relations with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan on Afghanistan’s northern borders” (pp. 44-47).

Additionally, one should bear in mind that both Pakistan and India have major interests in how Afghanistan is governed, there are great tensions between them (e.g., Kashmir), and they both have nuclear weapons, along with the capacity to deliver them on each other’s territory. Also recall that the US has played a significant role in the development of their nuclear capacities. The reasons go on. US leaders also want to do everything they can to persuade India not to develop relations with China that may further undermine US hegemonic aspirations in Asia. It’s all bewildering, but real.

So what’s the point of all this. We shouldn’t get entirely lost in the rapid-fire and changing events that are covered by the media and delivered in policy-statements by the White House. And we should never forget that all wars are based on lies, the manipulation of public opinion, destruction and huge numbers of civilian deaths and casualties in the affected countries, our own troop casualities, the waste of US resources, the weakening of diplomatic and other peace-oriented approaches to conflict, the strengthening of conservative and reactionary forces in the US itself, justifications for yet more military spending and a distortion of budget priorities, etc. It all adds up to a no-win, no-win, even worst, unfolding and tragic process.

For a provocative and useful defense of the claim that “War is a Lie,” read the book by that title, authored by David Swanson.

Americans are anxious about war in Afghanistan, but willing to see it extended

2010-12-02T08:24:00.000-08:00

A recent poll by USAToday/GallupPoll on American attitudes on the Afghanistan war finds increasing skepticism and anxiety among the majority of respondents. Some of the main results of the poll are presented in graphic form in USA Today, December 1, 2010. The full source is: Julie Snider, "Americans view Afghanistan war with skepticism, anxiety," USA Today.

There are three findings from the poll that strike me as important, though disheartening. On the positive side for those of us who would like to see the war ended soon (say, by the end of 2011), the poll does find that:

(1) fifty-four percent of those interviewed agree that the war is going "moderately badly" (38%) or "very badly" (16%.);

(2) sixty-eight percent are concerned about the costs of the war, including those who responded "very worried" (31%) and those who responded "somewhat worried" (38%).

At first glimpse, these findings suggest that the majority of American people are ready to support a relatively expeditious withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Think again.

At the same time, on the negative side from my perspective as an opponent of the war and occupation, sixty percent agree that the war should be extended beyond 2011, with 20 percent agreeing with "Obama's 2014 time table," and forty percent agreeing that the troops should remain "until the job is done."

So, more people worry that the war in Afghanistan is not going so well, and worry about the costs of the war, but still go along with the idea that the war and occupation should be extended until the end of 2014, when a withdrawal of troops would begin, or believe that it should go on until military leaders and defense officials tell them that we have achieved some yet not clearly defined goal or goals.

What this means is that the war/occupation, already in its tenth year, could continue for even another 5-10 years. Ask yourself who benefits. One big winner is that the US military-industrial complex keeps Afghanistan as a major justification for enormous "defense" budgets, contracts, and, yes, jobs. Another winner are those who believe that the US should have a huge military to maintain some sort of US hegemony, hundreds of military bases worldwide, and military interventions in countries that are not friendly to US interests, as defined by certain elites. Who loses? Those who want and need opportunities at home for jobs, health care, pension benefits, a decent safety net, and those who are ready to jump start and advance a truly green economy.

Stop the Afghanistan War stumbles on and the American people, more or less, go along, even when it is not in their interests to do so.

Afghanistan: Endless war, poor intelligence, and astronomical costs

2010-11-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

Withdrawal date extended, training of Afghan troops goes badly, US intelligence on Taliban is very poor, and there is little to show, outside of death, destruction, and corruption, for the tens of billions the US spends on the Afghanistan War.

The last few months of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan has done little to reverse the growing opposition among ordinary Americans to this costly and misbegotten intervention that appears to lurch from one strategy to another with little progress to show for it. Despite all this, the consensus among policy-makers in US government and military higher circles is that the occupation will continue until at least the end of 2014. Further, Gen. Petraeus and others have specified that 2014 is not a firm date for troop withdrawal. Whether there is any troop withdrawal depends on conditions on the ground.

There is another implication of this unfolding policy. While the US now has 100,000 or so combat troops in Afghanistan, along with special forces, an escalating air war, and more than 200,000 “trained” Afghan soldiers and police, news reports agree that the Taliban and various other insurgent groups are increasing their control or influence across the country, not only in southern provinces.
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Jason Ditz reports that the US occupation is now as long as the Soviet occupation, each lasting 9 years and fifty days, though the US occupation will continue years beyond Nov 25, 2010. Ditz notes that the US generals lack an exit strategy.

Source: Jason Ditz, “NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan as long as Soviet one,” Nov 25, 2010.
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Tom Engelhardt confirms Ditz’s reading of the situation and writes that US troops are not leaving any time soon, that is, “If you take the word of the Afghan war commanders, the secretary of defense, and top officials of the Obama administration and NATO.”

These high officials now agree that the withdrawal date of US troops from Afghanistan will be at the end of 2014, though General Petraeus waffles on this seeming consensus. Engelhardt refers to statements by Patraeus in which “he insisted that 2014 was nothing more than ‘an inflection point’ in an ever more-drawn out drawdown process.” Indeed, Petraeus insists that the US occupation “would likely extend to 2015 and beyond, which, Engelhardt says now puts “2016 officially in play.”

In the meantime – right now – US air attacks have increased. According to Engelhardt, “In Oct [2010], US planes launched missiles or bombs on 1,000 separate Afghan missions, numbers seldom seen since the 2001 invasion….Civilian deaths are rising rapidly….Special Operations’ night raids on Afghan homes by ‘capture/kill teams have tripled with 1,572 such operations over the last three months….”

The escalated military actions indicate that force now overshadows any attempts to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Afghans. As a consequence, Engelhardt concludes: “Afghans will once again pay with lives and treasure in a war that couldn’t be more bizarre, a war with no end in sight.”

Source: Tom Engelhardt, “How to Schedule a War: The Incredible Shrinking Withdrawal Date, “ Tomdispatch, Nov 24, 2010.
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There is another serious problem with the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, that is, US intelligence of the Taliban and other insurgent groups is extremely poor. Gareth Porter discusses a recent example to illustrate this point. Porter writes that in the last few months General Petraeus has repeatedly remarked that the Taliban leadership has shown a willingness to talk peace with Karzai. Patreus has suggested that this is a sign that his strategy, whatever it is, happens to be effective. But the central, or only, Afghan person in this supposed unfolding negotiation did not represent any Taliban group. “…Petraeus even deceiving himself as well as the news media in accepting the man claiming to be the second-ranked Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as genuine, despite a number of indications to the contrary.”

Then “on September 29, a Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Majahid said that Petraeus claims that the Taliban were negotiating with the Afghan government was completely baseless, and that the Taliban would not negotiate with ‘foreign invaders or their puppet government.’” Back to where we started.

Source: Gareth Porter, “Why Gen. Petraeus was Snookered by the ‘Taliban’ Imposter,” Counter Punch, Nov 25, 2010.
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The problems facing the US-led occupation of Afghanistan are not related to insufficient funding. According to Juan Cole’s review of the evidence, “the war is costing on the order of $7 billion a month, a sum that is still being borrowed and adding nearly a $100 billion a year to the already burgeoning national debt.”

Cole adds: “Although the US and NATO have spend $27 billion on training Afghan troops, only 12 percent of them can operate independently.” There is more from Cole. He writes “Karzai and his circle are extremely corrupt, taking millions in cash payments from Iran and looting a major bank for unsecured loans, allowing the purchase of opulent villas in fashionable Dubai.”

Source: Juan Cole, “Afghanistan: Obscenely Well-Funded, But Largely Unsuccessful War Rages Out of Sight of the American Public,” Informed Comment, Nov 19, 2010.

US needs alternative policies in Afghanistan and at home

2010-11-17T07:07:00.000-08:00

The Afghanistan Study Group refers to a new report on Afghanistan. The report, released in August 2010, is titled "A New Way Forward." It, or an overview of the report, can be retreived at http://www.afghanistanstudy.org.

The report goes into important reasons for why the US-led Afghanistan war and occupation should be scaled down.

The report estimates that the US government is spending $100 billion a year in mostly military expenses in Afghanistan. This is "a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan's annual gross produce of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new US health insurance program." The costs are more than financial. The report indicates that "thousands of American and allied personnel have been killed or gravely wounded."

The report overlooks the damage caused by the war to Afghanistan's land and infrastructure, to the Afghan people, to the intensified ethnic tensions and conflicts, to the consolidation of war-lord and insurgent power in all parts of the country, and to widespread corruption.

It does recognize that the US-led occupation has done little to bring political stability to Afghanistan. "Instead of toppling terrorists, America's Afghanistan war has become an ambitious and fruitless effort at 'nation-building.'" Continuing: "We are mired in a civil war in Afghanistan and our struggling to establish an effective central government in a country that has long been fragmented and decentralized."

Further, there is "no clear definition of what would comprise 'success' in this endeavor." Recent US-led offenses have not achieved the expected results. "The 2010 spring offensive in Marjah was inconclusive and a supposedly 'decisive' summer in Kandahar has been delayed and the expectations downgraded." And, as Tom Engelhardt reminds us (see Tom Dispatch.com, Nov. 17, 2010), the US has 400 military bases in Afghanistan. Along with these bases, the date for the "beginning" the withdrawal of US troops is pushed back time and again and now is tentatively set for the 2014.

When the authors of "A New War Forward," identify the elements of an alternative that moves in the direction of eliminating the need for US military forces, it is reasonable to think that we have heard this before.

Nonetheless, better something different than the same old military myths. The authors of the report include a set of recommendations, including (1) a draw down of US and allied military presence; (2) a limited security effort, involving "special forces, intelligence assets, and other US capabilities...to seek out and target known Al Qadea cells in the region"; (3) the encouragement of an "internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy; and (4) the engagement of "regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and [thereby] foster regional stability."

There is nothing in these recommendations that suggest how the Afghanistan people can themselves participate in creating a politically stable government.

In the meantime, the Afghan people suffer. For example, Juan Cole writes on his blog Informed Comment on Oct. 7, 2010, that both Iraq and Afghanistan are "among the 22 [most] food insecure countries. The evidence comes from a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. Coles quotes from the report:

"Chronic hunger and food insecurity are the most common characteristics of a protracted crisis. On average, the proportion of people who are undernourished in countries facing these complex problems is almost three times as high as in other developing countries."

While hunger in the US is not as great as in these developing countries, a BBC News report on Nov. 16, 2010, refers to a US Deptartment of Agriculture study that finds "almost 15% of US households experience a food shortage at some point in 2001." That is, 45 million or more people.

War is bad for people. It wastes resources and lives, and generates fear and hatred. And, as in the US, bloated military budgets, a far-flung system of military bases, permanent or endless wars, an expanding plutocracy, and capitalist system gone bonkers, are also bad for the people.

Malalai Joya offers an inspiring example and vision for an Afghanistan of justice and democracy

2010-11-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

Malalai Joya represents a voice for Afghanistan independence and democracy about which you rarely read or hear. She was elected to the lower house of the Afghan parliament in 2005. Then banned from the parliament after she criticized the warlords who were "chosen" or "elected" by the people in their districts. From Malalai's point of view, they were in the parliament not because of their desire to serve their constituents and the public good, but because of the fear of reprisal that they generated in the villages and towns.

In her book, A Woman Among Warlords, Malalai provides a memoir and political analysis of her journey from being a refugee with her family to her election to the parliament and to the years thereafter. As a member of parliament, she continued to speak out against the corrupt government of President Karzai and the warlords who dominate the parliament and Karzai's government. She does not mince words when it comes to the Taliban, speaking out agains them for their undemocratic, oppressive and mysogynist agenda and for their violence and extremist Islamic religious beliefs. As a result there have been assassination attempts on her life. She must move from safe-house to safe-house to avoid her would-be killers. And, all along, she continues to speak out against the warlords, Taliban, Karzai government, and the US-NATO occupation that causes more death and devastation than anything else. In the last pages of her book, Malalai writes these inspiring words:

"I am young [born in 1978 in a small village of Ziken] and value life; I don't want to be killed. But I don't fear death; I fear remaining silent in the fact of injustice...You can kill me, but you can never kill my spirit...Afghans are more than just a handful of warlords, Taliban, drug lords, and lackeys." She continues: "I have a country full of people who know what I know and believe what I believe: That we Afghans can govern ourselves without foreign interference. That democracy is possible here but can never be imported at gunpoint. That the blood of millions of freedom-loving martyrs runs through our veins, and their memories live on in every corner of our country. That Afghan women have been at the forefront of our struggle throughout our proud history....Out enemies can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of spring" (pp. 228-229).

An article

I just came across the following article by Malalai Joya, titled "Afghanistan neither wants nor needs NATO's occupying force," at: http://stopwar.org/uk/content/view/2132/1/

Afghanistan neither needs nor wants Nato's occupying forces

The question should be not "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" but "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today. While Afghans want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.

By Malalai Joya The Guardian 02 November 2010

One year ago Hamid Karzai was declared re-elected as president of Afghanistan, ending an election that had no legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Afghans.

The presidential election last year was a fraud, with ballot stuffing, vote buying and massive corruption reported by the world's media.

Even if the independent election commission had not cancelled the planned run-off between Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, it would have represented only a choice of the "same donkey with a new saddle".

People had no incentive to participate as they knew that both main candidates would bring nothing positive for Afghan people.

Karzai had lost his popularity way before the 2009 election. This was due to the ever increasing corruption of the government, the never-ending crimes of the many fundamentalists and warlords in his regime, and the financial scandals and corruption of his brothers. In Kandahar people even started calling Ahmed Wali Karzai the "little Bush", after the hated US president.
The vast majority of Afghans have lost all hope in Karzai. For us his words and actions have no value, and that includes his latest "peace negotiations" and other measures. Including killers like Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the government is not about negotiating for peace, but completing the decades-old circle of warlordism and fundamentalism.

It's important to say that these so-called elections haven't damaged Afghanistan as much as the US and its Nato allies have, with their bombing and occupation. Wikileaks has exposed some of the truth about the civilian toll of this war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Afghans hold the US and Nato, and their puppet Karzai, responsible for these war crimes.

Biggest terrorists

They claim to fight terrorism, but in fact they are the biggest terrorists in the eyes of our people because of their crimes and brutalities.

Unfortunately the Afghan people are not yet strong enough to drive out the US, overthrow the mafia government of Karzai and bring an end to the crimes of the Taliban and other fundamentalists. Our history proves that this resistance to occupation will continue until we have won our freedom. Until both the US and the fundamentalists – of both the Northern Alliance and Taliban brands – are driven out of power in Afghanistan, we cannot see a bright future.

It is now more than five years since I was elected to the Afghan parliament. My experience of this "democratic process" was to see my microphone cut off, and to be threatened with death by other MPs – many of whom teamed up to remove me illegally from my seat. My case alone is enough to prove that women's rights in Afghanistan have not truly been safeguarded – our situation was just invoked to justify the war.

In fact, it's important to remember another document that Wikileaks exposed earlier this year: a CIA paper assessing western public opinion on the war that recommended using "testimonials by Afghan women" expressing fear about a Taliban takeover in the event of Nato pulling out. A Time cover story featuring the disfigured Bibi Aisha was a clear example of using the plight of women as war propaganda.

The headline – "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" – could have, or should have, been "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today.

Many warlords and commanders aligned with Nato and Karzai carry out their sexist, misogynist crimes with impunity. Time could, for example, have done a cover story condemning the law signed by Karzai in 2009 that legalised crimes against Shia women, or about the shocking levels of women committing suicide by self-immolation.

Bad joke

We had another so-called parliamentary election in September, but I chose not to run. Any hope I had for using the ballot box to achieve change in Afghanistan is gone. Like last year's presidential vote, September's election was full of the buying and selling of votes – one province, Paktika, reported a turnout of 626%. This sort of thing is the reason elections in Afghanistan long ago became a bad joke.

Tomorrow there is an election in the US, and it is now two years since Barack Obama was elected president. His surge of troops has brought only a surge of violence, and his expansion of the war into Pakistan has claimed many innocent lives. Obama promised "hope" and "change", but Afghans have seen only change for the worse. Here he is now seen as a "second Bush".
The only change that can make us hopeful about the future is the strengthening and expansion of a national anti-fundamentalist and democracy-loving movement. Such a movement can be built only by Afghans. And while we want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.

See also by Malalai Joya:
Memo to America: Stop murdering my people...
A troop surge can only magnify the crime against Afghanistan...
Afghan people want immediate end to US occupation...