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?
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Obama, veteran benefits, and the ravages of war
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).
“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).
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Obama should have supported a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
The Stop the War Coalition, a coalition of groups in the UK, re-prints below Michael Moore's essay on what Obama should have said - but didn't - about US policy in Afghanistan. As usual, Moore makes many reasonable points here in why we should withdraw our troops from the country. Al Qaeda is not a threat, the US war/occupation is ineffective and a waste of taxpayers' money, the Karzai government is corrupt and many in his administration and government are linked to the production and distribution of "illegal" drugs, and we could better keep the money spent on this war at home to address the needs of Americans.
I would add that the Afghan war/occupation is related to the growing US needs for oil and Afghanistan is a part of the world in which there are large oil reserves, near the Casbian Sea and not too far from the Middle East. There is concern in the higher circles of the US about oil and also about pipelines, one feasible route for which would be through Afghanistan. Also, there are at least four other interests that make it difficult for US leaders to pull out of the country. One, the military establishment is concerned about some sort of success in Afghanistan to justify its huge budget. Second, there are hundreds of thousands of workers in the US who are employed by US weapons and supply producers. We have not yet created good alternative jobs for them. Third, our military and government leaders want to think we can be the big shot in the international community and that it is our destiny to bring "democracy" to all countries we define is relevant to this misbegotten goal. (See William Pfaff,'s book, The Irony of Manifest Destiny.) And fourth, we are concerned about the growing competition from China in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Obama must, then, announce a massive program for greening the economy, ala the Apollo Alliance and even greater, partly financed by the savings from US withdrawal from Afghanistan, from a tax on the wealthy, from the withdrawal of subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, from a tax on transactions on Wall Street....The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan could be a catalyst for transforming our economy and setting an example to the rest of the world. It would be a great beginning.
Senseless war begins 10th year: Time to Go says President Obama
"The people responsible for 9/11 are no longer in Afghanistan. So why are we? It is time for me to bring our troops home -- right now. Not one more American needs to die, says President Obama (as reported to Michael Moore).
By Michael Mooremichaelmoore.com07 October 2010
My fellow Americans...
(Michael Moore's case for time to go from Afghanistan)
Nine years ago today we invaded the nation of Afghanistan. I'd just turned 40. I had a Discman and an Oldsmobile and had gotten really into LiveJournal. That was a long time ago. It was so long ago, does anybody remember why we're even there? I think everyone wanted to capture Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. But he got away sometime in the first month or so. He left. We stayed. Looking back now, that makes no sense.
Needing to find a new reason for the mission, we decided to overthrow the religious extremists who were running Afghanistan. Which we did. Sorta. Unlike Osama, they never left. Why not? Well, they were Afghans, it was their country.
And, strangely enough, a lot of other Afghans supported them. To this day, the Taliban only have 25,000 armed fighters. Do you really think an army that tiny could control and suppress a nation of 28 million against their will? What's wrong with this picture? WTF is really going on here?
The truth is, I can't get an answer. My generals can't quite tell me what our mission is. If we went in there to rout out al-Qaeda, well, they're gone too. The CIA tells me there are under 100 of them left in the whole country!
My generals have also admitted the following to me:
1. There is no way we can defeat the Taliban. They enjoy too much popular support in the rural areas, the majority of the country.
2. Even though we've been there nine years, the truth is the Taliban, not us, not the Afghan government, control the country. After nine years, we've only completely run the Taliban out of 3% of Afghanistan.
3%!! (Just for reference, it took us only ELEVEN MONTHS after D-Day to entirely defeat the Nazis across all of Europe.)
3. Our troops and their commanders are still trying to learn the language, the culture, the customs of Afghanistan. The fact is, our troops are simply not trusted by the average people (especially after they've killed numerous civilians, either through recklessness or for sport).
4. The Afghan government we installed is corrupt beyond belief. The public does not trust them. President Karzai is on anti-depressants and our advisors tell us he is erratic and loopy on many days. His brother has a friendly relationship with the Taliban and is believed to be a major poppy (heroin) dealer. Heroin poppies are the #1 contributor to the Afghan economy.
The war in Afghanistan is a mess. The insurgency grows -- and why wouldn't it: foreign troops have invaded and occupied their country! The people responsible for 9/11 are no longer there. So why are we? Why are we offering up the lives of our sons and daughters every single day -- for no reason anyone can define.
In fact, the only reason I can see is that this war is putting billions of profits into the pockets of defense contractors. Is that a reason to stay, so Halliburton can post a larger profit this quarter?
It is time for me to bring our troops home -- right now. Not one more American needs to die. Their deaths do not make us safer and they do not bring democracy to Afghanistan.
It is not our mission to defeat the Taliban. That is the job of the Afghan people -- if that is what they choose to do. There are many groups and leaders of countries in this world who are despicable. We are not going to invade 30 countries and remove their regimes. That is not our job.
I am not going to stay in Afghanistan just because we're already there and we haven't "won" yet. There is nothing to win. No one from Genghis Khan to Leonid Brezhnev has been able to win there. So the troops are coming home.
I refuse to participate in scaring the American people with a phony "War on Terror." Are there terrorists? Yes. Will they strike again? Sadly, yes. But these terrorist acts are few and far between and should not dictate how we live our daily lives or make us ignore our constitutional rights. They should never distract us from what our real priorities are in making our country safe and secure: Everyone with a good job, families able to own a home and send their kids to college, universal health care that's coordinated by your elected representative government -- not by greedy, profit-hungry insurance companies. THAT would be true homeland security.
And what about Osama bin Laden? Nine years and we can't find a 6'5" Arab man who apparently is on dialysis? Even after offering $25 million to anyone who will tell us where he is? You don't think someone would have taken us up on that by now?
Here's what I know: Osama bin Laden is a multi-millionaire -- and if there's one thing I've learned about the rich is that they don't live in caves for 9 years. Bin Laden is either dead or hiding out in a place where his money protects him. Or maybe he just went home.
Just like we should do. Now. My condolences to the families of all who died in this war. Most of them signed up after 9/11 and wanted to do their duty because we were attacked. But we were not attacked by a country. We were attacked by a few religious extremists. And you don't defeat a few thugs by shipping halfway around the world thousands of armored vehicles and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. That is just sheer idiocy.
And it ends tonight.
(End of speech, as transcribed by Michael Moore)
I would add that the Afghan war/occupation is related to the growing US needs for oil and Afghanistan is a part of the world in which there are large oil reserves, near the Casbian Sea and not too far from the Middle East. There is concern in the higher circles of the US about oil and also about pipelines, one feasible route for which would be through Afghanistan. Also, there are at least four other interests that make it difficult for US leaders to pull out of the country. One, the military establishment is concerned about some sort of success in Afghanistan to justify its huge budget. Second, there are hundreds of thousands of workers in the US who are employed by US weapons and supply producers. We have not yet created good alternative jobs for them. Third, our military and government leaders want to think we can be the big shot in the international community and that it is our destiny to bring "democracy" to all countries we define is relevant to this misbegotten goal. (See William Pfaff,'s book, The Irony of Manifest Destiny.) And fourth, we are concerned about the growing competition from China in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Obama must, then, announce a massive program for greening the economy, ala the Apollo Alliance and even greater, partly financed by the savings from US withdrawal from Afghanistan, from a tax on the wealthy, from the withdrawal of subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, from a tax on transactions on Wall Street....The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan could be a catalyst for transforming our economy and setting an example to the rest of the world. It would be a great beginning.
Senseless war begins 10th year: Time to Go says President Obama
"The people responsible for 9/11 are no longer in Afghanistan. So why are we? It is time for me to bring our troops home -- right now. Not one more American needs to die, says President Obama (as reported to Michael Moore).
By Michael Mooremichaelmoore.com07 October 2010
My fellow Americans...
(Michael Moore's case for time to go from Afghanistan)
Nine years ago today we invaded the nation of Afghanistan. I'd just turned 40. I had a Discman and an Oldsmobile and had gotten really into LiveJournal. That was a long time ago. It was so long ago, does anybody remember why we're even there? I think everyone wanted to capture Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. But he got away sometime in the first month or so. He left. We stayed. Looking back now, that makes no sense.
Needing to find a new reason for the mission, we decided to overthrow the religious extremists who were running Afghanistan. Which we did. Sorta. Unlike Osama, they never left. Why not? Well, they were Afghans, it was their country.
And, strangely enough, a lot of other Afghans supported them. To this day, the Taliban only have 25,000 armed fighters. Do you really think an army that tiny could control and suppress a nation of 28 million against their will? What's wrong with this picture? WTF is really going on here?
The truth is, I can't get an answer. My generals can't quite tell me what our mission is. If we went in there to rout out al-Qaeda, well, they're gone too. The CIA tells me there are under 100 of them left in the whole country!
My generals have also admitted the following to me:
1. There is no way we can defeat the Taliban. They enjoy too much popular support in the rural areas, the majority of the country.
2. Even though we've been there nine years, the truth is the Taliban, not us, not the Afghan government, control the country. After nine years, we've only completely run the Taliban out of 3% of Afghanistan.
3%!! (Just for reference, it took us only ELEVEN MONTHS after D-Day to entirely defeat the Nazis across all of Europe.)
3. Our troops and their commanders are still trying to learn the language, the culture, the customs of Afghanistan. The fact is, our troops are simply not trusted by the average people (especially after they've killed numerous civilians, either through recklessness or for sport).
4. The Afghan government we installed is corrupt beyond belief. The public does not trust them. President Karzai is on anti-depressants and our advisors tell us he is erratic and loopy on many days. His brother has a friendly relationship with the Taliban and is believed to be a major poppy (heroin) dealer. Heroin poppies are the #1 contributor to the Afghan economy.
The war in Afghanistan is a mess. The insurgency grows -- and why wouldn't it: foreign troops have invaded and occupied their country! The people responsible for 9/11 are no longer there. So why are we? Why are we offering up the lives of our sons and daughters every single day -- for no reason anyone can define.
In fact, the only reason I can see is that this war is putting billions of profits into the pockets of defense contractors. Is that a reason to stay, so Halliburton can post a larger profit this quarter?
It is time for me to bring our troops home -- right now. Not one more American needs to die. Their deaths do not make us safer and they do not bring democracy to Afghanistan.
It is not our mission to defeat the Taliban. That is the job of the Afghan people -- if that is what they choose to do. There are many groups and leaders of countries in this world who are despicable. We are not going to invade 30 countries and remove their regimes. That is not our job.
I am not going to stay in Afghanistan just because we're already there and we haven't "won" yet. There is nothing to win. No one from Genghis Khan to Leonid Brezhnev has been able to win there. So the troops are coming home.
I refuse to participate in scaring the American people with a phony "War on Terror." Are there terrorists? Yes. Will they strike again? Sadly, yes. But these terrorist acts are few and far between and should not dictate how we live our daily lives or make us ignore our constitutional rights. They should never distract us from what our real priorities are in making our country safe and secure: Everyone with a good job, families able to own a home and send their kids to college, universal health care that's coordinated by your elected representative government -- not by greedy, profit-hungry insurance companies. THAT would be true homeland security.
And what about Osama bin Laden? Nine years and we can't find a 6'5" Arab man who apparently is on dialysis? Even after offering $25 million to anyone who will tell us where he is? You don't think someone would have taken us up on that by now?
Here's what I know: Osama bin Laden is a multi-millionaire -- and if there's one thing I've learned about the rich is that they don't live in caves for 9 years. Bin Laden is either dead or hiding out in a place where his money protects him. Or maybe he just went home.
Just like we should do. Now. My condolences to the families of all who died in this war. Most of them signed up after 9/11 and wanted to do their duty because we were attacked. But we were not attacked by a country. We were attacked by a few religious extremists. And you don't defeat a few thugs by shipping halfway around the world thousands of armored vehicles and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. That is just sheer idiocy.
And it ends tonight.
(End of speech, as transcribed by Michael Moore)
Thursday, September 30, 2010
High costs of war continue under Obama
Reporting for Stars and Stripes, Leo Shane writes on the highlights of a conference call with award-winning Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University economist Linda Bilmes. The focus of the call was on Stiglitz and Bilmes book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict and recent estimates. The book was first published in 2008. The $3 Trillion refers to the low estimate of the military-related costs of the Iraq War, including, among other things, the medical costs for veterans, the related costs for their famiies, and the opportunity costs for government, that is, what the government could have altrernatively spent on domestic programs here in the US (e.g., education, green infrastructure, job creation, medical care for all, etc.). The costs were estimated by the authors through 2017. The high-end cost estimate was $5-trillion.
Shane reports that, in the conference call, "Bilmes said about 600,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have already sought medical treatment from the Department of Veteran Affairs, and 500,000 have applied for disability benefits." Bilmes continued: "That's about 30 percent higher than initial estimates for care, and could cost the department nearly $1 trillion in costs for the current wars alone."
In addition, Shane reports, "Stiglitz said history has shown the cost of treating illness such as post-traumatic stress disorders only increase with time, and with the country still expecting a significant presence in Afghanistan for years to come, the bills will keep piling up."
See full story at: http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central_1.8040/study-wars-could-cost-4-trilliong-to-6-trillion-1.120054
From another source: A headline from Truthdig.com on August 9, 2010, indicates that "Obama Will Spend More than Bush on Military." (http://www.truthdig.com/ )
Truth.dig quotes from the New York Times as follows:
"Mr Gates [Secretary of Defense] is calling for the Pentagon's budget to keep growing in the long run at 1 percent a year after inflation, plus the cost of the war[s]. It has averaged an inflation-adjusted growth rate of 7 percent a year over the last decade (nearly 12 percent a yar without adjusting for inflation), including the costs of the wars. So far, Mr. Obama has asked Congress for an increase of total spending next year of 2.2 percent, to $708 billion - 6.1 percent higher than the peak under the Bush administration."
The implication of these estimates is that, when spending on the wars is included with other net increased in the military spending, Obama's military budget will be higher than what the Bush administration allocated in their highest military-spending year. Note also that the $708 billion does not include the costs of long-term medical care for veterans or the costs to their families of providing often extensive and long-term care, or, additionally, how rising military-related costs reduce expenditures on many important domestic programs in the US.
Shane reports that, in the conference call, "Bilmes said about 600,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have already sought medical treatment from the Department of Veteran Affairs, and 500,000 have applied for disability benefits." Bilmes continued: "That's about 30 percent higher than initial estimates for care, and could cost the department nearly $1 trillion in costs for the current wars alone."
In addition, Shane reports, "Stiglitz said history has shown the cost of treating illness such as post-traumatic stress disorders only increase with time, and with the country still expecting a significant presence in Afghanistan for years to come, the bills will keep piling up."
See full story at: http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central_1.8040/study-wars-could-cost-4-trilliong-to-6-trillion-1.120054
From another source: A headline from Truthdig.com on August 9, 2010, indicates that "Obama Will Spend More than Bush on Military." (http://www.truthdig.com/ )
Truth.dig quotes from the New York Times as follows:
"Mr Gates [Secretary of Defense] is calling for the Pentagon's budget to keep growing in the long run at 1 percent a year after inflation, plus the cost of the war[s]. It has averaged an inflation-adjusted growth rate of 7 percent a year over the last decade (nearly 12 percent a yar without adjusting for inflation), including the costs of the wars. So far, Mr. Obama has asked Congress for an increase of total spending next year of 2.2 percent, to $708 billion - 6.1 percent higher than the peak under the Bush administration."
The implication of these estimates is that, when spending on the wars is included with other net increased in the military spending, Obama's military budget will be higher than what the Bush administration allocated in their highest military-spending year. Note also that the $708 billion does not include the costs of long-term medical care for veterans or the costs to their families of providing often extensive and long-term care, or, additionally, how rising military-related costs reduce expenditures on many important domestic programs in the US.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Changing course in Afghanistan
Getting Out of Afghanistan
Editorial by The Nation magazine editors, published in the August 16/23, 2010, issue of the magazine. [See URL at the end of the post.] In what follows, I offer a summary of what I see as their principal points.
The editors of The Nation magazine have given up on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy. Unless he changes the policy, they think, his chances of reelection are diminished.
More troops, more special forces, more bombing and drones, the continuing occupation overall have not changed the corrupt government structure that is “unable to deliver the most basic services.” The Afghan people want the occupation to end. Continuing civilian deaths and casualties only deepen the hostility toward the occupation.
Further, a growing number of Americans also question the war/occupation, with its rising costs, troop casualties, and no clear measure of success. The US-led attack on Marja in Helmand province last spring, with overwhelming forces, failed to keep the Taliban from returning to the district. Looking to the future, the editors note importantly “...Petraeus’s proposal for building village defense forces is fraught with problems, not the least of which is that it would empower local militias and warlords and add more fuel to the civil war.”
“Time is not on our side,” the editors maintain. With rising Afghan casualties, the Taliban have grown and this will continue. “Even if we are able to eliminate many Taliban leaders, younger and more radical ones may take their place.” Therefore: “Better to negotiate with the ones we know today than those who may be radicalized by the fighting to come.”
“The war is expensive,” and there are many unmet and growing need at home. “A drawdown of forces would allow Obama to stop the loss of American and Afghan lives, reduce the drain on the federal budget and redeploy resources to create jobs and rebuild the battered US economy.”
There is, additionally, “uncertainty over whether the administration will adhere to the July 2011 drawdown....[Thus] “In June a majority of House Democrats supported legislation demanding an exit strategy and a timetable for withdrawal, and in late July the number of Democrats voting against the supplemental funding for the war tripled, to more than 100....”
What then should Obama do? “It would be better...for the administration to clear the air with a firm timetable for withdrawal and redirect its efforts toward regional diplomacy....” Such a changed course of policy could also improve the political chances of Obama in 2012.
If the editors are right, what then is spurring Obama, so far, in the wrong direction, toward an escalation of the war/occupation? Like so many US Democratic presidents before him, Obama may be stalled in the failed Afghan policy out of fear of being criticized for “losing a war.” For a detailed and insider’s view of how this fear applied to Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War, see Daniel Ellsberg’s book, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
Then there is also the pervasive influence of the military-industrial complex, the concern of losing influence in any part of an oil-rich region, and the growing influence of China.
Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/38031/getting-out-afghanistan
Editorial by The Nation magazine editors, published in the August 16/23, 2010, issue of the magazine. [See URL at the end of the post.] In what follows, I offer a summary of what I see as their principal points.
The editors of The Nation magazine have given up on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy. Unless he changes the policy, they think, his chances of reelection are diminished.
More troops, more special forces, more bombing and drones, the continuing occupation overall have not changed the corrupt government structure that is “unable to deliver the most basic services.” The Afghan people want the occupation to end. Continuing civilian deaths and casualties only deepen the hostility toward the occupation.
Further, a growing number of Americans also question the war/occupation, with its rising costs, troop casualties, and no clear measure of success. The US-led attack on Marja in Helmand province last spring, with overwhelming forces, failed to keep the Taliban from returning to the district. Looking to the future, the editors note importantly “...Petraeus’s proposal for building village defense forces is fraught with problems, not the least of which is that it would empower local militias and warlords and add more fuel to the civil war.”
“Time is not on our side,” the editors maintain. With rising Afghan casualties, the Taliban have grown and this will continue. “Even if we are able to eliminate many Taliban leaders, younger and more radical ones may take their place.” Therefore: “Better to negotiate with the ones we know today than those who may be radicalized by the fighting to come.”
“The war is expensive,” and there are many unmet and growing need at home. “A drawdown of forces would allow Obama to stop the loss of American and Afghan lives, reduce the drain on the federal budget and redeploy resources to create jobs and rebuild the battered US economy.”
There is, additionally, “uncertainty over whether the administration will adhere to the July 2011 drawdown....[Thus] “In June a majority of House Democrats supported legislation demanding an exit strategy and a timetable for withdrawal, and in late July the number of Democrats voting against the supplemental funding for the war tripled, to more than 100....”
What then should Obama do? “It would be better...for the administration to clear the air with a firm timetable for withdrawal and redirect its efforts toward regional diplomacy....” Such a changed course of policy could also improve the political chances of Obama in 2012.
If the editors are right, what then is spurring Obama, so far, in the wrong direction, toward an escalation of the war/occupation? Like so many US Democratic presidents before him, Obama may be stalled in the failed Afghan policy out of fear of being criticized for “losing a war.” For a detailed and insider’s view of how this fear applied to Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War, see Daniel Ellsberg’s book, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
Then there is also the pervasive influence of the military-industrial complex, the concern of losing influence in any part of an oil-rich region, and the growing influence of China.
Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/38031/getting-out-afghanistan
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Wikileaks documents are a big deal
In the following article, Joshua Holland responds to Andrew Exum's recent op-ed in the New York Times. Exum sees little new information in the 92,000 or so "military field reports lead by the whistle-blower site Wikileaks." He is dismissive of their impact on US Afghanistan policy or on pubic opinion. Holland writes that the information in the documents may not be new to people who study or have followed closely the occupation and war in Afghanistan.
But it is new (news) for most Americans and the documents help to confirm that the war has been ineffectually waged, civilian and military casualties have continued to be high, and the ISI in Pakistan have been undercutting US war efforts in Afghanistan, etc. Additionally, the documents may have the effect of increasing the number in US Congress who are willing to speak up against additional funding for the Afghanistan occupation/war, and perhaps even vote against the funding.
As the Wikileak documents get media attention, they plant seeds of opposition and reinforce opposition among a war-weary and economically strapped US citizenry.
Why Wikileak's Doc-Dump Is Such a Big Deal (Even if There’s Nothing New Within)
Posted by Joshua Holland on @ 9:19 am
Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/27/why-wikileaks-doc-dump-is-such-a-big-deal-even-if-theres-nothing-new-within/
There is a tendency among People Who Pay Close Attention To Things to think other Americans are also paying attention — to decent information — and are therefore somewhat in the know.
That leads to people trying to get away with ridiculous claims, such as this:
ANYONE who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.
That paragraph was from an op-ed piece by Andrew Exum, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) — a pro-Afghanistan war think-tank — in The New York Times. Exum’s message seems to be, ‘move along, folks, there’s nothing to see here.’ Understandable — CNAS, according to a WaPo report last year, “may emerge as Washington’s go-to think tank on military affairs” in the Obama era. CNAS staff have “filled key posts in the new administration (such as former CNAS president Michele Flournoy, who is now undersecretary of defense for policy), and its top people include John Nagl, who helped draft the Army’s counterinsurgency manual, and David Kilcullen, a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus.”
And his suspicion that everyone already knows this stuff is bullshit. In 1997, the government conducted a huge survey on American adults’ civic participation. Almost a third of the public couldn’t say what “job or political office” Al Gore held — after he had spent five years serving as vice-president. Around a third didn’t know which party held the majority in Congress at the time. Perhaps most shockingly, at least to political buffs like myself, was that 49 percent of Americans surveyed didn’t know “which party is more conservative at the national level.” That’s domestic politics — a subject that Americans tend to have a better grasp on than foreign affairs. Two years after the attacks of 9/11, 70 percent of the public believed in a conspiracy theory which held that Saddam Hussein had had a connection to the attacks.
I haven’t gone through those 92,000 field reports myself. And I have no problem buying that there’s nothing in the pile that would surprise anyone who not only reads the entirety of their hometown paper’s foreign coverage but also reads those stories all the way through to the 17th paragraph, where the real news — the ugly news of American war-making — tends to be buried. What is that — one percent of the population? I’d guess that’s overstating it.
So, this document dump pushes what a few war-nerds may have grasped from a thousand stories on page B-6 onto the front page, revealing not a series of “unfortunate incidents” but a pattern of disregard for civilian casualties that disproves a central tenet of our COIN strategy — that war can be fought in a kinder, gentler, more progressive way thus helping win the hearts and minds of the local population.
Here’s a report from the Times’ news section that completely contradicts Exum’s ‘ho-hum’ narrative:
The disclosure of a six-year archive of classified military documents increased pressure on President Obama to defend his military strategy as Congress prepares to deliberate financing of the Afghanistan war.
The disclosures, with their detailed account of a war faring even more poorly than two administrations had portrayed, landed at a crucial moment. Because of difficulties on the ground and mounting casualties in the war, the debate over the American presence in Afghanistan has begun earlier than expected. Inside the administration, more officials are privately questioning the policy.
In Congress, House leaders were rushing to hold a vote on a critical war-financing bill as early as Tuesday, fearing that the disclosures could stoke Democratic opposition to the measure. A Senate panel is also set to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Mr. Obama’s choice to head the military’s Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, who would oversee military operations in Afghanistan.
Administration officials acknowledged that the documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, will make it harder for Mr. Obama as he tries to hang on to public and Congressional support until the end of the year, when he has scheduled a review of the war effort.
Exum isn’t alone arguing that ‘there’s no there there,’ but I don’t think that’s going to cut it. Recent history certainly suggests it won’t:
The [Pentagon] papers revealed that the U.S. had deliberately expanded its war with carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corpsattacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US. The revelations widened the credibility gap between the US government and the people, allegedly hurting President Richard Nixon’s war effort.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer with AlterNet.
But it is new (news) for most Americans and the documents help to confirm that the war has been ineffectually waged, civilian and military casualties have continued to be high, and the ISI in Pakistan have been undercutting US war efforts in Afghanistan, etc. Additionally, the documents may have the effect of increasing the number in US Congress who are willing to speak up against additional funding for the Afghanistan occupation/war, and perhaps even vote against the funding.
As the Wikileak documents get media attention, they plant seeds of opposition and reinforce opposition among a war-weary and economically strapped US citizenry.
Why Wikileak's Doc-Dump Is Such a Big Deal (Even if There’s Nothing New Within)
Posted by Joshua Holland on @ 9:19 am
Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/27/why-wikileaks-doc-dump-is-such-a-big-deal-even-if-theres-nothing-new-within/
There is a tendency among People Who Pay Close Attention To Things to think other Americans are also paying attention — to decent information — and are therefore somewhat in the know.
That leads to people trying to get away with ridiculous claims, such as this:
ANYONE who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.
That paragraph was from an op-ed piece by Andrew Exum, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) — a pro-Afghanistan war think-tank — in The New York Times. Exum’s message seems to be, ‘move along, folks, there’s nothing to see here.’ Understandable — CNAS, according to a WaPo report last year, “may emerge as Washington’s go-to think tank on military affairs” in the Obama era. CNAS staff have “filled key posts in the new administration (such as former CNAS president Michele Flournoy, who is now undersecretary of defense for policy), and its top people include John Nagl, who helped draft the Army’s counterinsurgency manual, and David Kilcullen, a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus.”
And his suspicion that everyone already knows this stuff is bullshit. In 1997, the government conducted a huge survey on American adults’ civic participation. Almost a third of the public couldn’t say what “job or political office” Al Gore held — after he had spent five years serving as vice-president. Around a third didn’t know which party held the majority in Congress at the time. Perhaps most shockingly, at least to political buffs like myself, was that 49 percent of Americans surveyed didn’t know “which party is more conservative at the national level.” That’s domestic politics — a subject that Americans tend to have a better grasp on than foreign affairs. Two years after the attacks of 9/11, 70 percent of the public believed in a conspiracy theory which held that Saddam Hussein had had a connection to the attacks.
I haven’t gone through those 92,000 field reports myself. And I have no problem buying that there’s nothing in the pile that would surprise anyone who not only reads the entirety of their hometown paper’s foreign coverage but also reads those stories all the way through to the 17th paragraph, where the real news — the ugly news of American war-making — tends to be buried. What is that — one percent of the population? I’d guess that’s overstating it.
So, this document dump pushes what a few war-nerds may have grasped from a thousand stories on page B-6 onto the front page, revealing not a series of “unfortunate incidents” but a pattern of disregard for civilian casualties that disproves a central tenet of our COIN strategy — that war can be fought in a kinder, gentler, more progressive way thus helping win the hearts and minds of the local population.
Here’s a report from the Times’ news section that completely contradicts Exum’s ‘ho-hum’ narrative:
The disclosure of a six-year archive of classified military documents increased pressure on President Obama to defend his military strategy as Congress prepares to deliberate financing of the Afghanistan war.
The disclosures, with their detailed account of a war faring even more poorly than two administrations had portrayed, landed at a crucial moment. Because of difficulties on the ground and mounting casualties in the war, the debate over the American presence in Afghanistan has begun earlier than expected. Inside the administration, more officials are privately questioning the policy.
In Congress, House leaders were rushing to hold a vote on a critical war-financing bill as early as Tuesday, fearing that the disclosures could stoke Democratic opposition to the measure. A Senate panel is also set to hold a hearing on Tuesday on Mr. Obama’s choice to head the military’s Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, who would oversee military operations in Afghanistan.
Administration officials acknowledged that the documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, will make it harder for Mr. Obama as he tries to hang on to public and Congressional support until the end of the year, when he has scheduled a review of the war effort.
Exum isn’t alone arguing that ‘there’s no there there,’ but I don’t think that’s going to cut it. Recent history certainly suggests it won’t:
The [Pentagon] papers revealed that the U.S. had deliberately expanded its war with carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corpsattacks, none of which had been reported by media in the US. The revelations widened the credibility gap between the US government and the people, allegedly hurting President Richard Nixon’s war effort.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer with AlterNet.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Obama backs off of a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in July 2011
Jason Ditz offers confirmation that President Obama is not likely to adhere to a deadline for the beginning of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The President has given himself the discretion of whether to commence the reduction in troop levels in July 2011. All along his statements have been ambiguous. The idea of a "beginning" of a troop withdrawal does not specify how many troops would be withdrawn.
Further, under certain conditions, there may not be a withdrawal at all, that is, if the conditions on the ground and the judgement of generals in the field indicate more time - and perhaps additional troops - are necessary. This may well be the case if the central Afghan government is still weak, has significant warlord influence, and is plagued by corruption. This is the case if there is too little progress in creating an effective Afghan police and army forces. This is the case if groups associated with the Taliban or other insurgents continue to be a threat to the Afghan government and various parts of Afghanistan. This is the case if the Pashtun continue to feel alienated and targeted by the Karzai government, police, and army. This is the case if the great majority of the Afghan people remain impoverished and without hope, except for anger at and getting revenge on the occupation and government.
Such conditions prove counterproductive in the sense that they create additional insurgents and Taliban adherents. In his recent book, hopes and prospects, Noam Chomsky refers to a study of Taliban foot soldiers that has relevance for how the occupation itself is generating insurgency and implies as well how the prospects for a negotiated peaceful settlement are immproved if the occupation is drawn down. He writes:
"A study of the Taliban foot soldiers carried out by the Toronto Globe and Mail, though not a scientific survey as they point out, nevertheless yields considerable insight. All were Pashtuns, from the Kandahar area. They described themselves as mujahideen, following the ancient tradition of driving out foreign invaders. Almost a third reported that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years. Many siad that they were fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops. Few claimed to be fighting a global jihad, or had allegiance to Taliban leader Mullh Omar....Most saw themselves as fighting for principles - an Islamic government - not a particular leader. Again, the results suggest possibilities for a negotiated settlement, without foreign interference" (p. 244).
Despite findings like these, Obama appears to be committed to an indefinite occupation in Afghanistan. Other evidence is consistent with this view. For example, Chomsky points out:
"The Obama administration is also constructing mega-embassies in Pakistan and Afghanistan that are completely without precedent. Throughout the Gulf region, billions of dollars are being spent to develop 'critical base and port facilities,' along with military training and arms shipments expanding the US global system of militarization" (p. 63). And there are minerals in Afghanistan and the possibility of oil/gas pipeplines as well as the strategic location of the country. In the meantime, the Obama administration pushes the U.S. Congress to grant it supplemental funds for the war/occupation in Afghanistan.
In a word, indications are that the Afghanistan war/occupation is going to be a "long war."
“We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights,” Obama insisted, adding that “we said we’d begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility.”
Officials have been dismissing the July 2011 date as largely meaningless in the first place, but President Obama has avoided comment on it, since his announcement of the most recent escalation in December.
Actually what President Obama said was that the US would begin to “start the pullout” in July 2011 at the time, and Vice President Biden was sticking with that story as recently as last week, saying that a “whole lot of people” would be moving out in July.
Biden’s comments were quickly disavowed by a number of officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Since Gen. David Petraeus was tapped to head the war yesterday, it has been expected that the date would be quickly disavowed, as President Obama did.
The date was little but an excuse to convince opponents of the surge to withhold judgement on the war at any rate, but its new role as the “beginning of a transition phase” has downgraded it to complete irrelevance, as officials have been claiming for years that they have been encouraging the Afghan government to take “more and more responsibility” to no real effect.
European nations which have attempted to put realistic timetables on the war have predicted several more decades of conflict on a number of fronts. The reality however is that there is no end in sight on this war, and even ridiculously far-sighted dates are just guesses of when the war will, for some reason, stop getting worse and start getting better. The evidence suggests that every escalation will just make matters worse, and officials have no strategy other than more escalation, making the prospect of such a turn-around unlikely, at best.
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Further, under certain conditions, there may not be a withdrawal at all, that is, if the conditions on the ground and the judgement of generals in the field indicate more time - and perhaps additional troops - are necessary. This may well be the case if the central Afghan government is still weak, has significant warlord influence, and is plagued by corruption. This is the case if there is too little progress in creating an effective Afghan police and army forces. This is the case if groups associated with the Taliban or other insurgents continue to be a threat to the Afghan government and various parts of Afghanistan. This is the case if the Pashtun continue to feel alienated and targeted by the Karzai government, police, and army. This is the case if the great majority of the Afghan people remain impoverished and without hope, except for anger at and getting revenge on the occupation and government.
Such conditions prove counterproductive in the sense that they create additional insurgents and Taliban adherents. In his recent book, hopes and prospects, Noam Chomsky refers to a study of Taliban foot soldiers that has relevance for how the occupation itself is generating insurgency and implies as well how the prospects for a negotiated peaceful settlement are immproved if the occupation is drawn down. He writes:
"A study of the Taliban foot soldiers carried out by the Toronto Globe and Mail, though not a scientific survey as they point out, nevertheless yields considerable insight. All were Pashtuns, from the Kandahar area. They described themselves as mujahideen, following the ancient tradition of driving out foreign invaders. Almost a third reported that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years. Many siad that they were fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops. Few claimed to be fighting a global jihad, or had allegiance to Taliban leader Mullh Omar....Most saw themselves as fighting for principles - an Islamic government - not a particular leader. Again, the results suggest possibilities for a negotiated settlement, without foreign interference" (p. 244).
Despite findings like these, Obama appears to be committed to an indefinite occupation in Afghanistan. Other evidence is consistent with this view. For example, Chomsky points out:
"The Obama administration is also constructing mega-embassies in Pakistan and Afghanistan that are completely without precedent. Throughout the Gulf region, billions of dollars are being spent to develop 'critical base and port facilities,' along with military training and arms shipments expanding the US global system of militarization" (p. 63). And there are minerals in Afghanistan and the possibility of oil/gas pipeplines as well as the strategic location of the country. In the meantime, the Obama administration pushes the U.S. Congress to grant it supplemental funds for the war/occupation in Afghanistan.
In a word, indications are that the Afghanistan war/occupation is going to be a "long war."
The article:
Obama Disavows July 2011 Afghan Drawdown Date
Insists Date Just the 'Beginning of a Transition Phase'
by Jason Ditz, June 24, 2010
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“We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights,” Obama insisted, adding that “we said we’d begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility.”
Officials have been dismissing the July 2011 date as largely meaningless in the first place, but President Obama has avoided comment on it, since his announcement of the most recent escalation in December.
Actually what President Obama said was that the US would begin to “start the pullout” in July 2011 at the time, and Vice President Biden was sticking with that story as recently as last week, saying that a “whole lot of people” would be moving out in July.
Biden’s comments were quickly disavowed by a number of officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Since Gen. David Petraeus was tapped to head the war yesterday, it has been expected that the date would be quickly disavowed, as President Obama did.
The date was little but an excuse to convince opponents of the surge to withhold judgement on the war at any rate, but its new role as the “beginning of a transition phase” has downgraded it to complete irrelevance, as officials have been claiming for years that they have been encouraging the Afghan government to take “more and more responsibility” to no real effect.
European nations which have attempted to put realistic timetables on the war have predicted several more decades of conflict on a number of fronts. The reality however is that there is no end in sight on this war, and even ridiculously far-sighted dates are just guesses of when the war will, for some reason, stop getting worse and start getting better. The evidence suggests that every escalation will just make matters worse, and officials have no strategy other than more escalation, making the prospect of such a turn-around unlikely, at best.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
McChystal episode reveals a war without coherence
Joshua Holland's article focuses on the media interest on General Stanley McChrystal, the commanding military officer in Afghanistan. The article appearing in the magazine Rolling Stone. Written by Matt Hastings, he reports on "derogatory comments McChrystal and his staff made about the White House. Media pundits and hosts are speculating on whether President Obama will fire McChrystal from his job because of the general's insubordination. While this part of Hastings' story has been covered widely in the media, the most important part of the story, Holland points out, is overlooked, namely, that the US-led war and occupation in Afghanistan is failing and has no coherent direction. Military leaders think that with enough time and more troops the war in Afghanistan can still be won. Here are excerpts from Holland's article.
Dont Let the McChrystal Frenzy Obscure the Dirty Truth About Afghanistan
By Joshua Holland, Printed on June 23, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147302/
It should come as no surprise that General Stanley McChrystal’s return to Washington to explain a series of derogatory comments he and his staff made about the White House has ignited a media frenzy.
[....]
....the most important part of Hastings’ article is largely being ignored by the corporate media.
Hastings told a tale of a project with no hope for success. His story shows us that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is all about tactics dressed up as a strategy. It’s a profile of a military establishment running on inertia -- unable to withdraw because withdrawing is an admission of defeat, but also unable to accomplish the wholly unrealistic tasks put before it.
This is perhaps the most revealing passage from Hastings’ report:
"[Team Obama] are trying to manipulate perceptions because there is no definition of victory – because victory is not even defined or recognizable," says Celeste Ward, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation who served as a political adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq in 2006. "That's the game we're in right now. What we need, for strategic purposes, is to create the perception that we didn't get run off. The facts on the ground are not great, and are not going to become great in the near future."
...."If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to McChrystal says. Such realism, however, doesn't prevent advocates of counterinsurgency from dreaming big: Instead of beginning to withdraw troops next year, as Obama promised, the military hopes to ramp up its counterinsurgency campaign even further.
[....]
Anan Gobal noted that in 2008, after seven years of fighting, less than a third of the country was under the control of the central government in Kabul, and added: “Many say even that is now an optimistic assessment.” Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon was making cash payments to Afghan warlords. According to Bloomberg, “Contractors told congressional investigators they believe that, in turn, the ‘warlords make protection payments to insurgents’ who are fighting the U.S.”
[....]
According to a report released in January, the U.S.-backed government is also awash in corruption, which Afghans now view “as a bigger concern than security and unemployment.” The government we’re backing may be extracting as much as one quarter of Afghanistan’s gross national product in bribes. And Karzai’s own brother has been implicated in Afghanistan’s rich drug trade.
[....]
Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress didn’t miss what lies at the heart of the Rolling Stone report. “The significance of this food fight is not in what was said,” he wrote, “but in what it says about where the United States is in Afghanistan":
What has become apparent is that … the mythic status now given to the surge in Iraq led to a significant degree of over-confidence on the part of McChrystal and others about their ability to turn the Afghan war around after it had utterly deteriorated year after year under the neglectful watch of the Bush administration.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
Dont Let the McChrystal Frenzy Obscure the Dirty Truth About Afghanistan
By Joshua Holland, Printed on June 23, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147302/
It should come as no surprise that General Stanley McChrystal’s return to Washington to explain a series of derogatory comments he and his staff made about the White House has ignited a media frenzy.
[....]
....the most important part of Hastings’ article is largely being ignored by the corporate media.
Hastings told a tale of a project with no hope for success. His story shows us that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is all about tactics dressed up as a strategy. It’s a profile of a military establishment running on inertia -- unable to withdraw because withdrawing is an admission of defeat, but also unable to accomplish the wholly unrealistic tasks put before it.
This is perhaps the most revealing passage from Hastings’ report:
"[Team Obama] are trying to manipulate perceptions because there is no definition of victory – because victory is not even defined or recognizable," says Celeste Ward, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation who served as a political adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq in 2006. "That's the game we're in right now. What we need, for strategic purposes, is to create the perception that we didn't get run off. The facts on the ground are not great, and are not going to become great in the near future."
...."If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to McChrystal says. Such realism, however, doesn't prevent advocates of counterinsurgency from dreaming big: Instead of beginning to withdraw troops next year, as Obama promised, the military hopes to ramp up its counterinsurgency campaign even further.
[....]
Anan Gobal noted that in 2008, after seven years of fighting, less than a third of the country was under the control of the central government in Kabul, and added: “Many say even that is now an optimistic assessment.” Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon was making cash payments to Afghan warlords. According to Bloomberg, “Contractors told congressional investigators they believe that, in turn, the ‘warlords make protection payments to insurgents’ who are fighting the U.S.”
[....]
According to a report released in January, the U.S.-backed government is also awash in corruption, which Afghans now view “as a bigger concern than security and unemployment.” The government we’re backing may be extracting as much as one quarter of Afghanistan’s gross national product in bribes. And Karzai’s own brother has been implicated in Afghanistan’s rich drug trade.
[....]
Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress didn’t miss what lies at the heart of the Rolling Stone report. “The significance of this food fight is not in what was said,” he wrote, “but in what it says about where the United States is in Afghanistan":
What has become apparent is that … the mythic status now given to the surge in Iraq led to a significant degree of over-confidence on the part of McChrystal and others about their ability to turn the Afghan war around after it had utterly deteriorated year after year under the neglectful watch of the Bush administration.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Media attention on Afghanistan War is down
Here are excerpts from the following article, focusing on the relative lack of media attention to the futile and destructive US-led military occupation of Afghanistan.
America’s Forgotten War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_forgotten_war_20100528/
Posted on May 28, 2010
By Bill Boyarsky
Excerpts:
News on Afghanistan "war" lost amidst other crises: "...the oil spill, intractable unemployment and the rest—for it has definitely diverted attention from his biggest disaster: the Afghanistan war."
The lack of a serious debate and media attention on the Afghanistan quagmire is probably good for Obama, but bad for the country. Some reasons. "Casualties are rising, passing 1,000. The Afghanistan war’s cost in February alone was $6.7 billion, USA Today reported. At this rate, there may not be enough money to pay for the health care reform that Obama sees as his legacy.
Boyarsky refers to Pew Reserch Center survey findings. "For the week of May 17-23, Afghanistan was in seventh place in the overall standings. For newspapers, the war was 10th. It was seventh for online, sixth for network television and 10th for cable TV. Afghanistan coverage didn’t register for radio. The oil rig explosion, the 2010 elections, the economic crisis and the Mexican president’s Washington visit all occupied more space or time."
Tom Rosensteil, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, responds to a question from Boyarsky. "With the death toll rising and the number of Americans in Afghanistan increasing, why the poor coverage?....“'One factor is that, historically, if Americans—and the American news media is a reflection of them—have pressing domestic concerns … the domestic concerns seem to come out first,' he said."
Moreover: "The few prominent opponents and critics of the war can’t catch their attention.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution for withdrawal from Afghanistan within 30 days was defeated in the House. Peace candidates in the current election campaigns, such as Marcy Winograd, who is running against Rep. Jane Harman in a Democratic primary in Southern California, are scarce.
And there has been minimal coverage of legislation requiring President Obama to develop a flexible timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C. Obama has said he wants to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but that obviously isn’t a firm enough promise for Feingold. The senator also disagreed with Obama’s goal of denying al-Qaida “a safe haven,” stopping Taliban advances and strengthening Afghanistan’s government. This made little sense to Feingold, who said, “A large open-ended expensive military presence in Afghanistan is not the way to defeat al Qaeda.” He inserted the Feingold-McGovern measure as an amendment to a spending bill, but it was voted down, 18-80."
America’s Forgotten War
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_forgotten_war_20100528/
Posted on May 28, 2010
By Bill Boyarsky
Excerpts:
News on Afghanistan "war" lost amidst other crises: "...the oil spill, intractable unemployment and the rest—for it has definitely diverted attention from his biggest disaster: the Afghanistan war."
The lack of a serious debate and media attention on the Afghanistan quagmire is probably good for Obama, but bad for the country. Some reasons. "Casualties are rising, passing 1,000. The Afghanistan war’s cost in February alone was $6.7 billion, USA Today reported. At this rate, there may not be enough money to pay for the health care reform that Obama sees as his legacy.
Boyarsky refers to Pew Reserch Center survey findings. "For the week of May 17-23, Afghanistan was in seventh place in the overall standings. For newspapers, the war was 10th. It was seventh for online, sixth for network television and 10th for cable TV. Afghanistan coverage didn’t register for radio. The oil rig explosion, the 2010 elections, the economic crisis and the Mexican president’s Washington visit all occupied more space or time."
Tom Rosensteil, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, responds to a question from Boyarsky. "With the death toll rising and the number of Americans in Afghanistan increasing, why the poor coverage?....“'One factor is that, historically, if Americans—and the American news media is a reflection of them—have pressing domestic concerns … the domestic concerns seem to come out first,' he said."
Rosensteil added other reasons. (1) "War fatigue" from the years of coverage on the Iraq "war." (2) "mainstream news business is short of money...." "Covering a war is expensive." (3) "editors and other media managers don't think people are interested."
Furthermore: "...there’s not much political debate over the war, and without controversy there’s not much interest on the blogs and among cable’s so-called analysts, who have become more influential than old-fashioned reporters."Moreover: "The few prominent opponents and critics of the war can’t catch their attention.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution for withdrawal from Afghanistan within 30 days was defeated in the House. Peace candidates in the current election campaigns, such as Marcy Winograd, who is running against Rep. Jane Harman in a Democratic primary in Southern California, are scarce.
And there has been minimal coverage of legislation requiring President Obama to develop a flexible timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C. Obama has said he wants to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but that obviously isn’t a firm enough promise for Feingold. The senator also disagreed with Obama’s goal of denying al-Qaida “a safe haven,” stopping Taliban advances and strengthening Afghanistan’s government. This made little sense to Feingold, who said, “A large open-ended expensive military presence in Afghanistan is not the way to defeat al Qaeda.” He inserted the Feingold-McGovern measure as an amendment to a spending bill, but it was voted down, 18-80."
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Shift in public opinion on Afghanistan raises questions
There are two news items from Just Foreign Policy on the Web, http://justforeignpolicy.org/node/572, that are worth a few comments.
The first item is that award-winning and widely admired journalist Seymour Hersh has taken a position on the US-led Afghanistan occupation and war that is at odds with the US administration, military, and congressional, positions. The headline from Just Foreign Policy reveals Hersh's view: "Only solution in Afghanistan is settlement with Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar." (See the longer statement and an accompanying video interview with Hersh at http://michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/seymour-hersh-obama-being-dominated-us-military.)
One implication for why the Obama administration refuses to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar is that US Afghanistan policy is being driven more by the interests of the US miitary and other powerful interests than by public opinion. The bloated US military needs to continuously find justification for the massive money US citizens are pouring into the Pentagon budget as a whole and to "wars" like those in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another implication is that given the domestic political strength of the Pentagon, Obama has chosen to heed their recommendations. If this is true, it is not a new story. C. Wright Mills wrote a book in the 1950s titled The Power Elite, in which Mills argued how the Pentagon was a major force in US foreign policy. This analysis was later expanded in the work of Seymour Melman in books like his Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War.
The second item from today's Just Foreign Policy on the Web, refers to a new opinion poll that indicates a negative turn among the US public on the Administration's Afghanistan military policy.
"Afghan president Hamid Karzai's visit to the White House this week arrives as the public's take on the war there has tilted back to negative, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
"A majority says the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs, marking a return to negative territory after a brief uptick in public support in the wake of the announcement of the administration's new strategy for the conflict.
"Despite the shift in views on the war, President Obama's ratings for handling the conflict have remained positive since the unveiling of the new strategy - 56 percent approve, 36 percent disapprove.Views on the war's value have become more negative among both Democrats and independents. In the new poll, 56 percent of independents say it is not worth fighting, up from 47 percent in December. Among Democrats, 66 percent say it's not worth it, including half who feel that way strongly.
"Republicans are solidly behind the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, with 69 percent saying the war is worth its costs....
There are two things that stand out about the poll. One is that the trend among Independent and Democratic respondents is become increasingly opposed to the idea that the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting. This suggests that despite the paltry coverage of the Afghan war in the US commercial media, a high percentages of Americans are finally expressing opposition to the war and imply that US troops should be withdrawn according to some reasonable plan. The other point about this item is that Obama's handling of the war is still viewed by majorities as positive.
The two points appear contradictory. It's not clear why majorities of Independents and Democratics have come to view the Afghan war/occupation as not worth fighting any more, while a substantial majority overall think Obama is doing good enough. The answer may be that the polls are invalid, or that many Americans cannot connect the two, a war going badly and Obama's responsibility in that quagmire.
It also suggests that there is a rightward tilt in Obama's Afghanistan policy that reflects the influence of the military-industrial complex, other big corporate interests (e.g., bail out of Wall Street), the need to maintain the credibility of the US military forces, and a host of right wing psuedo-patriotic groups. Public opinion, with its ups and downs, doesn't rank very high in the Obama White House.
Behind it all, we must remind ourselves, there are larger geo-political interests in Central Asia and the Middle East that, in the final analysis, dictate Obama's policies and, in the end, make public opinion superfluous.
The first item is that award-winning and widely admired journalist Seymour Hersh has taken a position on the US-led Afghanistan occupation and war that is at odds with the US administration, military, and congressional, positions. The headline from Just Foreign Policy reveals Hersh's view: "Only solution in Afghanistan is settlement with Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar." (See the longer statement and an accompanying video interview with Hersh at http://michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/seymour-hersh-obama-being-dominated-us-military.)
One implication for why the Obama administration refuses to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar is that US Afghanistan policy is being driven more by the interests of the US miitary and other powerful interests than by public opinion. The bloated US military needs to continuously find justification for the massive money US citizens are pouring into the Pentagon budget as a whole and to "wars" like those in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another implication is that given the domestic political strength of the Pentagon, Obama has chosen to heed their recommendations. If this is true, it is not a new story. C. Wright Mills wrote a book in the 1950s titled The Power Elite, in which Mills argued how the Pentagon was a major force in US foreign policy. This analysis was later expanded in the work of Seymour Melman in books like his Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War.
The second item from today's Just Foreign Policy on the Web, refers to a new opinion poll that indicates a negative turn among the US public on the Administration's Afghanistan military policy.
"Afghan president Hamid Karzai's visit to the White House this week arrives as the public's take on the war there has tilted back to negative, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
"A majority says the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs, marking a return to negative territory after a brief uptick in public support in the wake of the announcement of the administration's new strategy for the conflict.
"Despite the shift in views on the war, President Obama's ratings for handling the conflict have remained positive since the unveiling of the new strategy - 56 percent approve, 36 percent disapprove.Views on the war's value have become more negative among both Democrats and independents. In the new poll, 56 percent of independents say it is not worth fighting, up from 47 percent in December. Among Democrats, 66 percent say it's not worth it, including half who feel that way strongly.
"Republicans are solidly behind the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, with 69 percent saying the war is worth its costs....
There are two things that stand out about the poll. One is that the trend among Independent and Democratic respondents is become increasingly opposed to the idea that the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting. This suggests that despite the paltry coverage of the Afghan war in the US commercial media, a high percentages of Americans are finally expressing opposition to the war and imply that US troops should be withdrawn according to some reasonable plan. The other point about this item is that Obama's handling of the war is still viewed by majorities as positive.
The two points appear contradictory. It's not clear why majorities of Independents and Democratics have come to view the Afghan war/occupation as not worth fighting any more, while a substantial majority overall think Obama is doing good enough. The answer may be that the polls are invalid, or that many Americans cannot connect the two, a war going badly and Obama's responsibility in that quagmire.
It also suggests that there is a rightward tilt in Obama's Afghanistan policy that reflects the influence of the military-industrial complex, other big corporate interests (e.g., bail out of Wall Street), the need to maintain the credibility of the US military forces, and a host of right wing psuedo-patriotic groups. Public opinion, with its ups and downs, doesn't rank very high in the Obama White House.
Behind it all, we must remind ourselves, there are larger geo-political interests in Central Asia and the Middle East that, in the final analysis, dictate Obama's policies and, in the end, make public opinion superfluous.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Peace candidates could stir a debate on Afghanistan policy
Bill Boyarsky has an article on Truthdig.com that has some relevance for the position we take on this website, namely, to end the US-led war in Afghanistan. The article, "America's War Disease," can be found at: http://truthdig.com/report/item/americas_war_disease_20100507
The thrust of Boyarsky's article is to offer hope for a timely withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in a situation where President Obama is increasing troop levels in the country, where liberal congressional representatives are by and large supporting Obama's policy, where the media have virtually ceased covering the issue, and at a time when the country is saddled with a host of crises that redirect the attention of the society in other directions. The basis for his hope is that there are some peace candidates running against incumbent office-holders in congressional elections.
One such peace candidate is Marcy Winograd, who is challenging incumbent Jane Harmon in the Democratic Primary. The congressional district involved "reaches from the Los Angeles suburbs through beach cities and inland cities. It is a district that Harmon has represented from 1993 to 1998, and then from 2000 to the present.
While Winograd and Harmon agree on many progressive issues, they have different positions on Afghanistan policy. Harmon supports President Obama's policy of a "carefully calibrated timetable, flexibly based on conditions on the ground. Harmon voted against a resolution brought to the House floor by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). The resolution called for a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days of the passage of his bill and assistance to Afghanistan in rebuilding its war-torn society. Unlike Harmon, Winograd says she would have support the Kucinich resolution.
Boyarsky is excited about the candidacies of peace supporters for congressional seats, because they will help stimulate, he thinks, a debate over our embroilment in Afghanistan (and in Iraq and Israel-Palestine). But there are not many peace candidates and they aren't given much of a chance to win. In the case of the Harmon-Winograd electoral race, Harmon has the party establishment's support, much more name recognition, and more money to spend on her election than Wiongrad. In addition, the electorate is more concerned about housing foreclosures, unemployment, state budget shortfalls and cuts in services, than the war in Afghanistan.
We would love to see Winograd unseat Harmon, but think it's unlikely. We do not deny that one factor in a movement for a transformed foreign policy would include courageous and dedicated candidates like Harmon, along with an aroused public. Unfortunately, at the moment, the odds do not look good for peace candidates. Thus, to quote the last sentence of Boyarsky' article, "Otherwise, the US will continue to be mired in this fruitless war." And we add, with more on the horizon.
The thrust of Boyarsky's article is to offer hope for a timely withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in a situation where President Obama is increasing troop levels in the country, where liberal congressional representatives are by and large supporting Obama's policy, where the media have virtually ceased covering the issue, and at a time when the country is saddled with a host of crises that redirect the attention of the society in other directions. The basis for his hope is that there are some peace candidates running against incumbent office-holders in congressional elections.
One such peace candidate is Marcy Winograd, who is challenging incumbent Jane Harmon in the Democratic Primary. The congressional district involved "reaches from the Los Angeles suburbs through beach cities and inland cities. It is a district that Harmon has represented from 1993 to 1998, and then from 2000 to the present.
While Winograd and Harmon agree on many progressive issues, they have different positions on Afghanistan policy. Harmon supports President Obama's policy of a "carefully calibrated timetable, flexibly based on conditions on the ground. Harmon voted against a resolution brought to the House floor by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). The resolution called for a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days of the passage of his bill and assistance to Afghanistan in rebuilding its war-torn society. Unlike Harmon, Winograd says she would have support the Kucinich resolution.
Boyarsky is excited about the candidacies of peace supporters for congressional seats, because they will help stimulate, he thinks, a debate over our embroilment in Afghanistan (and in Iraq and Israel-Palestine). But there are not many peace candidates and they aren't given much of a chance to win. In the case of the Harmon-Winograd electoral race, Harmon has the party establishment's support, much more name recognition, and more money to spend on her election than Wiongrad. In addition, the electorate is more concerned about housing foreclosures, unemployment, state budget shortfalls and cuts in services, than the war in Afghanistan.
We would love to see Winograd unseat Harmon, but think it's unlikely. We do not deny that one factor in a movement for a transformed foreign policy would include courageous and dedicated candidates like Harmon, along with an aroused public. Unfortunately, at the moment, the odds do not look good for peace candidates. Thus, to quote the last sentence of Boyarsky' article, "Otherwise, the US will continue to be mired in this fruitless war." And we add, with more on the horizon.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Obama and Pentagon prepare to spend more on counterinsurgency preparation
The following notes are based on highlights of an article article by Michael T. Klare that appear in the April 26th issue of The Nation magazine. The title of the article is "Two, Three, Many Afghanistans." The complete article is available at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100426/Klare
The chief point of Klare’s article is that “Obama's Pentagon is preparing for a number of counterinsurgencies in the developing world,” all related to terrorism, failing states, rogue states, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, or other national-defense-sounding rationales. We gotta get them before they get us. Klare writes there are many similarities in the Obama plan to the counter-insurgency program that emerged back in the early 1960s under President Kennedy’s administration, when Kennedy “authorized a vast expansion of Special Forces” while continuing the expenditures on conventional and nuclear warfare.
Obama is interested in the same kind of military expansion. Klare quotes from a speech given by President Obama on “violent extremism,” in which Obama said: “Unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the twentieth century, our effort will involve disorderly regions, failed states, diffuse enemies….(consequently) we’ll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power.” The Obama counterinsurgency policy will be used to keep Al Qaeda and other groups assumed connected to it from establishing a foothold anywhere in the world of developing countries.
Obama's counterinsurgency doctrine was, Klare writes, “first enunciated in a series of speeches by Obama and Gates [Secretary of Defense], and has been given formal character in the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon’s Congressionally mandated overhaul of strategy,” released on the first of February. The QDR reaffirms the idea of America “as [being] a global power with global responsibilities.” However, there are changes in the current international situation, with the growth of “non-state actors, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and other destructive enabling technologies.” Therefore, according to the QDR, US forces must be able to respond to “the full range of challenges that could emerge from a complex and dynamic security environment.” This is a rationale for endless wars, in which the government, especially the Pentagon and its congressional and industry supporters, can identify enemies in any number of places that are perceived as a danger to our national security.
US forces must “be equipped for counterinsurgency-type operations: helicopters, small arms, body armor, night-vision devices, mine-resistant vehicles, aerial gunships, surveillance drones and the like.” More revenues for Special Forces. More revenues for our partners “to strengthen their capacity for internal security.” The US has already exported this model to other areas, “supporting counterinsurgency operations in Columbia, the Philippines, and Yemen, among other countries.”
“The greatest risk,” Klare emphasizes, “is that the military will become bogged down in a constellation of grueling, low-level wars.” At the same time, the policy also wants more funding for conventional high-intensity warfare (e.g., big ships, big planes, submarines, large conventional armies, etc) “thereby producing ever-increasing military budgets, a growing national deficit and persistent economic paralysis.” The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan already demonstrate how costly and counterproductive war can be, whatever its guise.
What Klare does not emphasize in this article, but does document in his books and other writing, is that the real challenge for the US comes from a world in which there are increasingly not enough resources to go round. Military force will not help us resolve this basic fact, but only exacerbate it. We need different economic policies than we have, ones that encourage cooperation, equity, and an economic model that is consistent with the earth. In the meantime, we do the opposite, with military interventions in the forefront.
The chief point of Klare’s article is that “Obama's Pentagon is preparing for a number of counterinsurgencies in the developing world,” all related to terrorism, failing states, rogue states, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, or other national-defense-sounding rationales. We gotta get them before they get us. Klare writes there are many similarities in the Obama plan to the counter-insurgency program that emerged back in the early 1960s under President Kennedy’s administration, when Kennedy “authorized a vast expansion of Special Forces” while continuing the expenditures on conventional and nuclear warfare.
Obama is interested in the same kind of military expansion. Klare quotes from a speech given by President Obama on “violent extremism,” in which Obama said: “Unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the twentieth century, our effort will involve disorderly regions, failed states, diffuse enemies….(consequently) we’ll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power.” The Obama counterinsurgency policy will be used to keep Al Qaeda and other groups assumed connected to it from establishing a foothold anywhere in the world of developing countries.
Obama's counterinsurgency doctrine was, Klare writes, “first enunciated in a series of speeches by Obama and Gates [Secretary of Defense], and has been given formal character in the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon’s Congressionally mandated overhaul of strategy,” released on the first of February. The QDR reaffirms the idea of America “as [being] a global power with global responsibilities.” However, there are changes in the current international situation, with the growth of “non-state actors, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and other destructive enabling technologies.” Therefore, according to the QDR, US forces must be able to respond to “the full range of challenges that could emerge from a complex and dynamic security environment.” This is a rationale for endless wars, in which the government, especially the Pentagon and its congressional and industry supporters, can identify enemies in any number of places that are perceived as a danger to our national security.
US forces must “be equipped for counterinsurgency-type operations: helicopters, small arms, body armor, night-vision devices, mine-resistant vehicles, aerial gunships, surveillance drones and the like.” More revenues for Special Forces. More revenues for our partners “to strengthen their capacity for internal security.” The US has already exported this model to other areas, “supporting counterinsurgency operations in Columbia, the Philippines, and Yemen, among other countries.”
“The greatest risk,” Klare emphasizes, “is that the military will become bogged down in a constellation of grueling, low-level wars.” At the same time, the policy also wants more funding for conventional high-intensity warfare (e.g., big ships, big planes, submarines, large conventional armies, etc) “thereby producing ever-increasing military budgets, a growing national deficit and persistent economic paralysis.” The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan already demonstrate how costly and counterproductive war can be, whatever its guise.
What Klare does not emphasize in this article, but does document in his books and other writing, is that the real challenge for the US comes from a world in which there are increasingly not enough resources to go round. Military force will not help us resolve this basic fact, but only exacerbate it. We need different economic policies than we have, ones that encourage cooperation, equity, and an economic model that is consistent with the earth. In the meantime, we do the opposite, with military interventions in the forefront.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
President Obama ready to talk to the Taliban?
The following article is from the Telegraph online, UK. I include here excerpts from the full article, the URL for which is at the end of the article. I have highlighted key words or ideas.
HEADLINE - President Barack Obama declares America should be ready to talk to the Taliban
American forces are prepared to make overtures to moderate Taliban commanders using an approach that saw insurgents in Iraq turn against al-Qaeda, President Barack Obama has said.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul Published: 9:36AM GMT 08 Mar 2009
US/Allied troop casualties expected to increase. President Obama conceded that conditions had deteriorated and fighting is expected to be heavier this year
Counter-insurgency not effective. President Obama said the military was not winning the counter insurgency war in Afghanistan as he opened the door for peace negotiations....
Model for talks is what General Patraeus did in Iraq. "If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of al-Qaeda in Iraq."
There can be no military victory. Coalition military commanders have repeatedly stressed the increasingly violent insurgency in Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means.
President Hamid Karzai wants negotiations. Hamid Karzai... has called for peace talks with members of the country's former Taliban regime and offered Mullah Omar, it's fugitive leader, safe passage for negotiations.
Concern that negotiations may not work because there are so many divisions among Afghan fighters. ....Analysts say the insurgency of disparate groups of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, foreign fighters, former jihadi commanders, alienated tribal leaders, drug barons and common bandits could be too fractured for negotiations.
National Afghan government is still unstable.... [Obama is quoted] "The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people.
In the meantime. "And so it's going to be critical for us," Obama is quoted as saying, "to not only, get through these national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we've got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al-Qaeda and extremists that would do us harm don't have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/4956581/President-Barack-Obama-declares-America-should-be-ready-to-talk-to-the-Taliban.html
TelegraphNews
HEADLINE - President Barack Obama declares America should be ready to talk to the Taliban
American forces are prepared to make overtures to moderate Taliban commanders using an approach that saw insurgents in Iraq turn against al-Qaeda, President Barack Obama has said.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul Published: 9:36AM GMT 08 Mar 2009
US/Allied troop casualties expected to increase. President Obama conceded that conditions had deteriorated and fighting is expected to be heavier this year
Counter-insurgency not effective. President Obama said the military was not winning the counter insurgency war in Afghanistan as he opened the door for peace negotiations....
Model for talks is what General Patraeus did in Iraq. "If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of al-Qaeda in Iraq."
There can be no military victory. Coalition military commanders have repeatedly stressed the increasingly violent insurgency in Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means.
President Hamid Karzai wants negotiations. Hamid Karzai... has called for peace talks with members of the country's former Taliban regime and offered Mullah Omar, it's fugitive leader, safe passage for negotiations.
Concern that negotiations may not work because there are so many divisions among Afghan fighters. ....Analysts say the insurgency of disparate groups of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, foreign fighters, former jihadi commanders, alienated tribal leaders, drug barons and common bandits could be too fractured for negotiations.
National Afghan government is still unstable.... [Obama is quoted] "The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people.
In the meantime. "And so it's going to be critical for us," Obama is quoted as saying, "to not only, get through these national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we've got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al-Qaeda and extremists that would do us harm don't have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate."
An ambiguity in the report: Will negotiations be advanced? Will negotiations be fostered whether the national government is stabilized or not? Will the US-led occupation forces be able to effectively combine military, diplomatic, and development actions in a way it hasn't so far.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/4956581/President-Barack-Obama-declares-America-should-be-ready-to-talk-to-the-Taliban.html
TelegraphNews
Monday, March 29, 2010
Some evidence challenges upbeat message to US troops in Afghanistan
Yesterday, President Barack Obama paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. During his short time there, he addressed an audience of US troops. If you go to the whitehouse.gov website, you can read and/or hear the full address.
The White House emphasizes on its web site the following paragraph from the President’s speech that sums up what Obama, his administration, and military advisers view as the principal missions of the US occupation in Afghanistan. There is nothing new in what the President said in this regard, only the same themes that we have long ago found unpersuasive and why we support a reasonable, but committed, timeline for withdrawing our troops.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/28/one-night-afghanistan
In his remarks, President Obama reiterated the mission before the troops:
Our broad mission is clear: We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies. That is our mission. And to accomplish that goal, our objectives here in Afghanistan are also clear: We’re going to deny al Qaeda safe haven. We’re going to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. We’re going to strengthen the capacity of Afghan security forces and the Afghan government so that they can begin taking responsibility and gain confidence of the Afghan people.
Here are some recent articles that dispute or raise serious doubt about success in Obama’s Afghan mission statement, namely, (1) the training of Afghan army recruits is going badly, (2) similarly it is going badly for the training of Afghan police recruits, (3) the US is turning parts of the huge Bagram military base in Afghanistan into another Gitmo, and (4) the US military goal of reducing or ending poppy cultivation is being put on hold.
First, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reports that US marines find it exasperating to team up with Afghan soldiers. http://mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/24/91014/afghan-soldiers-way-below-standard.html.
Second, an article written by T. Christian Miller, Mark Osenball and Ron Moreau for Mother Jones magazine documents how the training of Afghan police is going badly, even after the US has spent $6 billion on the effort. See: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/6-billion-later-afghan-cops-aren’t%E2%80%99t-ready-serve
Pratap Chatterjee provides further documentation of the poor police training results for Afghan recruits in his article for TomDispatch.com, “How Afghan Police Training Became a Train Wreck.” See: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175220/tomgram%3A-pratap-chatterjee%2C-failing-afghanistan%27s-cops
Third, here are two “headlines” from Democracy Now’s program of March 23. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/23/headlines
Report: US Mulls Bagram as Next Gitmo
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the Obama administration is considering a plan to jail foreign prisoners at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan instead of at Guantanamo Bay. Using Bagram would allow the administration to meet its pledge to close Guantanamo while still denying prisoners the right to challenge their detentions in US courts. The plan would also help the White House evade scrutiny for the torture and mistreatment of prisoners because they would remain jailed off US soil. The Los Angeles Times also reports US officials decided to kill a foreign suspect in Somalia last year in part due to uncertainty over where he would be jailed if captured. The suspect, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, was killed in a US air strike after US officials decided they wouldn’t know where to imprison him.
US Halts Poppy Eradication in Afghan Areas
The US military, meanwhile, has confirmed it’s ended poppy eradication in several areas of Afghanistan. US forces have previously targeted Afghan farmers responsible for poppy crops that produce large quantities of opium and heroin. But the US says it’s ended the eradications in a bid to win over Afghan support. A US military official said, “We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.”
These are all sources that bring President Obama’s upbeat address to the troops in Afghanistan yesterday into question.
There is another somewhat relevant point. Obama has sometimes been compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. However, if you compare what Obama has said about our missions in Afghanistan and how it is “a good war,” with MLK’s 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break the Silence,” you may quickly understand how they fundamentally differ on the use of military force in resolving conflicts abroad. Obama sees the use of military force as a good strategy in Afghanistan, whereas MLK found military force to be counterproductive in Vietnam – and, of course, was a historically major voice for non-violence and negotiations in the use of American power and influence in the world. For MLK, there were no good wars. You can find MLK’s speech at http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
The White House emphasizes on its web site the following paragraph from the President’s speech that sums up what Obama, his administration, and military advisers view as the principal missions of the US occupation in Afghanistan. There is nothing new in what the President said in this regard, only the same themes that we have long ago found unpersuasive and why we support a reasonable, but committed, timeline for withdrawing our troops.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/28/one-night-afghanistan
In his remarks, President Obama reiterated the mission before the troops:
Our broad mission is clear: We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies. That is our mission. And to accomplish that goal, our objectives here in Afghanistan are also clear: We’re going to deny al Qaeda safe haven. We’re going to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. We’re going to strengthen the capacity of Afghan security forces and the Afghan government so that they can begin taking responsibility and gain confidence of the Afghan people.
Here are some recent articles that dispute or raise serious doubt about success in Obama’s Afghan mission statement, namely, (1) the training of Afghan army recruits is going badly, (2) similarly it is going badly for the training of Afghan police recruits, (3) the US is turning parts of the huge Bagram military base in Afghanistan into another Gitmo, and (4) the US military goal of reducing or ending poppy cultivation is being put on hold.
First, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reports that US marines find it exasperating to team up with Afghan soldiers. http://mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/24/91014/afghan-soldiers-way-below-standard.html.
Second, an article written by T. Christian Miller, Mark Osenball and Ron Moreau for Mother Jones magazine documents how the training of Afghan police is going badly, even after the US has spent $6 billion on the effort. See: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/6-billion-later-afghan-cops-aren’t%E2%80%99t-ready-serve
Pratap Chatterjee provides further documentation of the poor police training results for Afghan recruits in his article for TomDispatch.com, “How Afghan Police Training Became a Train Wreck.” See: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175220/tomgram%3A-pratap-chatterjee%2C-failing-afghanistan%27s-cops
Third, here are two “headlines” from Democracy Now’s program of March 23. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/23/headlines
Report: US Mulls Bagram as Next Gitmo
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the Obama administration is considering a plan to jail foreign prisoners at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan instead of at Guantanamo Bay. Using Bagram would allow the administration to meet its pledge to close Guantanamo while still denying prisoners the right to challenge their detentions in US courts. The plan would also help the White House evade scrutiny for the torture and mistreatment of prisoners because they would remain jailed off US soil. The Los Angeles Times also reports US officials decided to kill a foreign suspect in Somalia last year in part due to uncertainty over where he would be jailed if captured. The suspect, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, was killed in a US air strike after US officials decided they wouldn’t know where to imprison him.
US Halts Poppy Eradication in Afghan Areas
The US military, meanwhile, has confirmed it’s ended poppy eradication in several areas of Afghanistan. US forces have previously targeted Afghan farmers responsible for poppy crops that produce large quantities of opium and heroin. But the US says it’s ended the eradications in a bid to win over Afghan support. A US military official said, “We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.”
These are all sources that bring President Obama’s upbeat address to the troops in Afghanistan yesterday into question.
There is another somewhat relevant point. Obama has sometimes been compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. However, if you compare what Obama has said about our missions in Afghanistan and how it is “a good war,” with MLK’s 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break the Silence,” you may quickly understand how they fundamentally differ on the use of military force in resolving conflicts abroad. Obama sees the use of military force as a good strategy in Afghanistan, whereas MLK found military force to be counterproductive in Vietnam – and, of course, was a historically major voice for non-violence and negotiations in the use of American power and influence in the world. For MLK, there were no good wars. You can find MLK’s speech at http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
US imperialism and Afghanistan
William Blum, an outstanding scholar of U.S. imperialism, comments in the following essay on the implications of President Obama's foreign policy, principally for Afghanistan. One of his chief points is that there are many indications that negotiations with the Taliban are possible, especially if the US is willing to agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of its troops.
Like his predecessors in the White House, Obama demonizes the Afghan enemy as "extremists" who act from "irrational" motives, as "bad guys" who only understand military force, and as "an implacable and monolithic enemy." While the focus is on this abstractly characterized and evil force, no attention is paid in White House discourse and little in the press as to why Afghanistan is of interest to US policy- and war-makers. Blum refers to the geo-political and oil-related considerations that make Afghanistan such an important target. And, additionally, the interests in justifying an ever-growing military-industrial complex. Forget the rhetoric on democracy and reconstruction and "freedom." They are all distractions from the real interests. Most of us, here and there, are, unfortunately, lost in these grand schemes.
Bob
-----------------------------------------
The Anti-Empire Report
December 9th, 2009by William Blumhttp://www.killinghope.org/
http://killinghope/org/bblum6/aer76.html
Yeswecanistan
All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:
We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.
Why should anyone be surprised at Obama's foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: "Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban." This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.
But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label "Taliban" are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label "al Qaeda". "I am convinced," the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, "that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."
Obama used one form or another of the word "extremist" eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America's never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are "extremists", that "extremists" are by definition bad guys, that "extremists" are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.
And the bad guys attacked the US "from here", Afghanistan. That's why the United States is "there", Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: "The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters." 1
The pretenses extend further. US leaders have fed the public a certain image of the insurgents (all labeled together under the name "Taliban") and of the conflict to cover the true imperialistic motivation behind the war. The predominant image at the headlines/TV news level and beyond is that of the Taliban as an implacable and monolithic "enemy" which must be militarily defeated at all costs for America's security, with a negotiated settlement or compromise not being an option. However, consider the following which have been reported at various times during the past two years about the actual behavior of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Taliban, which can raise questions about Obama's latest escalation: 2
The US military in Afghanistan has long been considering paying Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul, as the United States has done with Iraqi insurgents.
President Obama has floated the idea of negotiating with moderate elements of the Taliban. 3
US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials. 4
Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban in various ways.
A top European Union official and a United Nations staff member were ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge. And two senior diplomats for the United Nations were expelled from the country, accused by the Afghan government of unauthorized dealings with insurgents. However, the Afghanistan government itself has had a series of secret talks with "moderate Taliban" since 2003 and President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.
Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the United Nations have become increasingly open about their contacts with the Taliban leadership and other insurgent groups.
Gestures of openness are common practice among some of Washington's allies in Afghanistan, notably the Dutch, who make negotiating with the Taliban an explicit part of their military policy.
The German government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.
MI-6, Britain's external security service, has held secret talks with the Taliban up to half a dozen times. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as a district chief in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.
Senior British officers involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as rivals in the Taliban movement providing intelligence which has led to leaders being killed or captured.
British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different "tiers" of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.
British contacts with the Taliban have occurred despite British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly ruling out such talks; on one occasion he told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
For months there have been repeated reports of "good Taliban" forces being airlifted by Western helicopters from one part of Afghanistan to another to protect them from Afghan or Pakistani military forces. At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai himself claimed that "some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night." 5
On November 2, IslamOnline.net (Qatar) reported: "The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed. 'US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast ... America wants eight army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of [the] Al-Qaeda network,' a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net." 6
There has been no confirmation of this from American officials, but the New York Times on October 28 listed six provinces that were being considered to receive priority protection from the US military, five of which are amongst the eight mentioned in the IslamOnline report as being planned for US military bases, although no mention is made in the Times of the above-mentioned offer. The next day, Asia Times reported: "The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan [or Nooristan], on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles." Nuristan, where earlier in the month eight US soldiers were killed and three Apache helicopters hit by hostile fire, is one of the six provinces offered to the Taliban as reported in the IslamOnline.net story.
The part about al-Qaeda is ambiguous and questionable, not only because the term has long been loosely used as a catch-all for any group or individual in opposition to US foreign policy in this part of the world, but also because the president's own national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, stated in early October: "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." 7
Shortly after Jones's remarks, we could read in the Wall Street Journal: "Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al-Qaida is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. ... For Arab youths who are al-Qaida's primary recruits, 'it's not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. official in South Asia." 8
From all of the above is it not reasonable to conclude that the United States is willing and able to live with the Taliban, as repulsive as their social philosophy is? Perhaps even a Taliban state which would go across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been talked about in some quarters. What then is Washington fighting for? What moves the president of the United States to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure? In past years, US leaders have spoken of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, liberating Afghan women, or modernizing a backward country. President Obama made no mention of any of these previous supposed vital goals in his December 1 speech. He spoke only of the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban, terrorists, extremists, and such, symbols guaranteed to fire up an American audience. Yet, the president himself declared at one point: "Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border." Ah yes, the terrorist danger ... always, everywhere, forever, particularly when it seems the weakest.
How many of the West Point cadets, how many Americans, give thought to the fact that Afghanistan is surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions? Or that Afghanistan is ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia? If only the Taliban will not attack the lines. "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south ...", said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in 2007. 9
Afghanistan would also serve as the home of American military bases, the better to watch and pressure next-door Iran and the rest of Eurasia. And NATO ... struggling to find a raison d'être since the end of the Cold War. If the alliance is forced to pull out of Afghanistan without clear accomplishments after eight years will its future be even more in doubt?
So, for the present at least, the American War on Terror in Afghanistan continues and regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists, as it has done in Iraq. This is not in dispute even at the Pentagon or the CIA. God Bless America.
Although the "surge" failed as policy, it succeeded as propaganda.
They don't always use the word "surge", but that's what they mean. Our admirable leaders and our mainstream media that love to interview them would like us to believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan is in effect a "surge", like the one in Iraq which, they believe, has proven so successful. But the reality of the surge in Iraq was nothing like its promotional campaign. To the extent that there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq (now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation), we must keep in mind the following summary of how and why it "succeeded":
Thanks to America's lovely little war, there are many millions of Iraqis either dead, wounded, crippled, homebound or otherwise physically limited, internally displaced, in foreign exile, or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons. Many others have been so traumatized that they are concerned simply for their own survival. Thus, a huge number of potential victims and killers has been markedly reduced.
Extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place: Sunnis and Shiites are now living much more than before in their own special enclaves, with entire neighborhoods surrounded by high concrete walls and strict security checkpoints; violence of the sectarian type has accordingly gone down.
In the face of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, US soldiers venture out a lot less, so the violence against them has been sharply down. It should be kept in mind that insurgent attacks on American forces following the invasion of 2003 is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.
For a long period, the US military was paying insurgents (or "former insurgents") to not attack occupation forces.
The powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire for his militia, including attacks against US troops, that was in effect for an extended period; this was totally unconnected to the surge.
We should never forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their friends, their families, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.
The War against Everything and Everyone, Endlessly
Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that "the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself." 10 Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a "war against Muslims". Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.
I believe they're mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it's been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that in 1999 one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns ever — 78 days in a row — was carried out against the Serbs of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. Indeed, we were told that the bombing was to rescue the people of Kosovo, who are largely Muslim. Earlier, the United States had come to the aid of the Muslims of Bosnia in their struggle against the Serbs. The United States is in fact an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become an American bombing target appear to be: (a) It poses a sufficient obstacle — real, imagined, or, as with Serbia, ideological — to the desires of the empire; (b) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
Notes
Video on Information Clearinghouse ↩
For the news items which follow if not otherwise sourced, see:
The Independent (London), December 14, 2007
Daily Telegraph (UK) December 26, 2007
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) May 1, 2008
BBC News, October 28, 2009 ↩
New York Times, March 11, 2009 ↩
Kuwait News Agency, November 24, 2009 ↩
Pakistan Observer (Islamabad daily), October 19, 2009; The Jamestown Foundation (conservative Washington, DC think tank), "Karzai claims mystery helicopters ferrying Taliban to north Afghanistan", November 6, 2009; Institute for War and Peace Reporting (London), "Helicopter rumour refuses to die", October 26, 2009 ↩
IslamOnline, "US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases", November 2, 2009↩
Washington Times, October 5, 2009, from a CNN interview ↩
Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009 ↩
Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007. ↩
Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009 ↩
–
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org/
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 [at] aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.
(Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.)
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned.
Like his predecessors in the White House, Obama demonizes the Afghan enemy as "extremists" who act from "irrational" motives, as "bad guys" who only understand military force, and as "an implacable and monolithic enemy." While the focus is on this abstractly characterized and evil force, no attention is paid in White House discourse and little in the press as to why Afghanistan is of interest to US policy- and war-makers. Blum refers to the geo-political and oil-related considerations that make Afghanistan such an important target. And, additionally, the interests in justifying an ever-growing military-industrial complex. Forget the rhetoric on democracy and reconstruction and "freedom." They are all distractions from the real interests. Most of us, here and there, are, unfortunately, lost in these grand schemes.
Bob
-----------------------------------------
The Anti-Empire Report
December 9th, 2009by William Blumhttp://www.killinghope.org/
http://killinghope/org/bblum6/aer76.html
Yeswecanistan
All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:
We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.
Why should anyone be surprised at Obama's foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: "Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban." This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.
But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label "Taliban" are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label "al Qaeda". "I am convinced," the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, "that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."
Obama used one form or another of the word "extremist" eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America's never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are "extremists", that "extremists" are by definition bad guys, that "extremists" are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.
And the bad guys attacked the US "from here", Afghanistan. That's why the United States is "there", Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: "The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters." 1
The pretenses extend further. US leaders have fed the public a certain image of the insurgents (all labeled together under the name "Taliban") and of the conflict to cover the true imperialistic motivation behind the war. The predominant image at the headlines/TV news level and beyond is that of the Taliban as an implacable and monolithic "enemy" which must be militarily defeated at all costs for America's security, with a negotiated settlement or compromise not being an option. However, consider the following which have been reported at various times during the past two years about the actual behavior of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Taliban, which can raise questions about Obama's latest escalation: 2
The US military in Afghanistan has long been considering paying Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul, as the United States has done with Iraqi insurgents.
President Obama has floated the idea of negotiating with moderate elements of the Taliban. 3
US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials. 4
Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban in various ways.
A top European Union official and a United Nations staff member were ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge. And two senior diplomats for the United Nations were expelled from the country, accused by the Afghan government of unauthorized dealings with insurgents. However, the Afghanistan government itself has had a series of secret talks with "moderate Taliban" since 2003 and President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.
Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the United Nations have become increasingly open about their contacts with the Taliban leadership and other insurgent groups.
Gestures of openness are common practice among some of Washington's allies in Afghanistan, notably the Dutch, who make negotiating with the Taliban an explicit part of their military policy.
The German government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.
MI-6, Britain's external security service, has held secret talks with the Taliban up to half a dozen times. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as a district chief in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.
Senior British officers involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as rivals in the Taliban movement providing intelligence which has led to leaders being killed or captured.
British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different "tiers" of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.
British contacts with the Taliban have occurred despite British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly ruling out such talks; on one occasion he told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
For months there have been repeated reports of "good Taliban" forces being airlifted by Western helicopters from one part of Afghanistan to another to protect them from Afghan or Pakistani military forces. At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai himself claimed that "some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night." 5
On November 2, IslamOnline.net (Qatar) reported: "The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed. 'US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast ... America wants eight army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of [the] Al-Qaeda network,' a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net." 6
There has been no confirmation of this from American officials, but the New York Times on October 28 listed six provinces that were being considered to receive priority protection from the US military, five of which are amongst the eight mentioned in the IslamOnline report as being planned for US military bases, although no mention is made in the Times of the above-mentioned offer. The next day, Asia Times reported: "The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan [or Nooristan], on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles." Nuristan, where earlier in the month eight US soldiers were killed and three Apache helicopters hit by hostile fire, is one of the six provinces offered to the Taliban as reported in the IslamOnline.net story.
The part about al-Qaeda is ambiguous and questionable, not only because the term has long been loosely used as a catch-all for any group or individual in opposition to US foreign policy in this part of the world, but also because the president's own national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, stated in early October: "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." 7
Shortly after Jones's remarks, we could read in the Wall Street Journal: "Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al-Qaida is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. ... For Arab youths who are al-Qaida's primary recruits, 'it's not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. official in South Asia." 8
From all of the above is it not reasonable to conclude that the United States is willing and able to live with the Taliban, as repulsive as their social philosophy is? Perhaps even a Taliban state which would go across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been talked about in some quarters. What then is Washington fighting for? What moves the president of the United States to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure? In past years, US leaders have spoken of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, liberating Afghan women, or modernizing a backward country. President Obama made no mention of any of these previous supposed vital goals in his December 1 speech. He spoke only of the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban, terrorists, extremists, and such, symbols guaranteed to fire up an American audience. Yet, the president himself declared at one point: "Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border." Ah yes, the terrorist danger ... always, everywhere, forever, particularly when it seems the weakest.
How many of the West Point cadets, how many Americans, give thought to the fact that Afghanistan is surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions? Or that Afghanistan is ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia? If only the Taliban will not attack the lines. "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south ...", said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in 2007. 9
Afghanistan would also serve as the home of American military bases, the better to watch and pressure next-door Iran and the rest of Eurasia. And NATO ... struggling to find a raison d'être since the end of the Cold War. If the alliance is forced to pull out of Afghanistan without clear accomplishments after eight years will its future be even more in doubt?
So, for the present at least, the American War on Terror in Afghanistan continues and regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists, as it has done in Iraq. This is not in dispute even at the Pentagon or the CIA. God Bless America.
Although the "surge" failed as policy, it succeeded as propaganda.
They don't always use the word "surge", but that's what they mean. Our admirable leaders and our mainstream media that love to interview them would like us to believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan is in effect a "surge", like the one in Iraq which, they believe, has proven so successful. But the reality of the surge in Iraq was nothing like its promotional campaign. To the extent that there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq (now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation), we must keep in mind the following summary of how and why it "succeeded":
Thanks to America's lovely little war, there are many millions of Iraqis either dead, wounded, crippled, homebound or otherwise physically limited, internally displaced, in foreign exile, or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons. Many others have been so traumatized that they are concerned simply for their own survival. Thus, a huge number of potential victims and killers has been markedly reduced.
Extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place: Sunnis and Shiites are now living much more than before in their own special enclaves, with entire neighborhoods surrounded by high concrete walls and strict security checkpoints; violence of the sectarian type has accordingly gone down.
In the face of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, US soldiers venture out a lot less, so the violence against them has been sharply down. It should be kept in mind that insurgent attacks on American forces following the invasion of 2003 is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.
For a long period, the US military was paying insurgents (or "former insurgents") to not attack occupation forces.
The powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire for his militia, including attacks against US troops, that was in effect for an extended period; this was totally unconnected to the surge.
We should never forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their friends, their families, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.
The War against Everything and Everyone, Endlessly
Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that "the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself." 10 Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a "war against Muslims". Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.
I believe they're mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it's been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that in 1999 one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns ever — 78 days in a row — was carried out against the Serbs of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. Indeed, we were told that the bombing was to rescue the people of Kosovo, who are largely Muslim. Earlier, the United States had come to the aid of the Muslims of Bosnia in their struggle against the Serbs. The United States is in fact an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become an American bombing target appear to be: (a) It poses a sufficient obstacle — real, imagined, or, as with Serbia, ideological — to the desires of the empire; (b) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
Notes
Video on Information Clearinghouse ↩
For the news items which follow if not otherwise sourced, see:
The Independent (London), December 14, 2007
Daily Telegraph (UK) December 26, 2007
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) May 1, 2008
BBC News, October 28, 2009 ↩
New York Times, March 11, 2009 ↩
Kuwait News Agency, November 24, 2009 ↩
Pakistan Observer (Islamabad daily), October 19, 2009; The Jamestown Foundation (conservative Washington, DC think tank), "Karzai claims mystery helicopters ferrying Taliban to north Afghanistan", November 6, 2009; Institute for War and Peace Reporting (London), "Helicopter rumour refuses to die", October 26, 2009 ↩
IslamOnline, "US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases", November 2, 2009↩
Washington Times, October 5, 2009, from a CNN interview ↩
Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009 ↩
Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007. ↩
Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009 ↩
–
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org/
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 [at] aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.
(Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.)
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned.
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