Why Americans want an end to the Afghanistan war

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

Issue #1 – growing opposition to Afghanistan War

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

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

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

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

What accounts for the growing opposition to the Afghanistan War?

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

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

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

Issue #4 – US troop casualties are rising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Afghanistan - cut funding, reduce violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/02/17/cutting-100-billion-easy/
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Sadly the war is likely to continue beyond 2011 or 2014. There is no definitive end in sight for this fruitless endeavor. And it is likely to get worse by the violence it generates in the meantime.
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Slobodan Lekic learns that the top US general in Afghanistan sees intensified fighting in 2011. Reporting for the Associated Press (2-9-11), Lekic writes that “General Patraeus predicts intensified fighting in 2011.” Lekic continues:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/16/mullen-informs-congress-afghan-violence-to-worsen-in-2011/
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The anticipated increase in violence is predictably going to result in increase deaths and injuries, physical and psychological, both to civilians and to combatants. Derrick Crowe reports in the Huffington Post (Feb 2, 2011) that “2010 was the worst year for civilian deaths of the Afghanistan War.” Put it together. If last year was the worst year in this respect, and if the top military brass predicts that violence will rise in 2011, then 2011 will become the worst year for civilian deaths in this battered country of Afghanistan. The surge in carnage will continue to escalate, we are forewarned.
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Derrick Crowe:
“Last year was the worst year for civilian deaths in the war so far, and irregular armed groups backed by the U.S. and by the Afghan government are preying on the population while recruiting and abusing children. Go team.
[….]
“Here's the latest assessment from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (.PDF):

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/2010-worst-year-for-civil_b_817308.html
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There are alternatives to the US/NATO war on occupation of Afghanistan. Tom Engelhardt offers sound advice in his article cited earlier. The Afghanistan Study Group provides an authoritative and comprehensive report in “A New Way Forward: Rethinking US Strategy in Afghanistan.” Check it out at:

http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/

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

Afghanistan as deepening quagmire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In his final sentence, Cole writes:

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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).

The many costs and tragedy of the war in Afghanistan

Peter Preston questions why soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are dying needlessly, as the US and allied commanders and political leaders try desperately to find a rationale for pulling troops out of the country. The article is printed below, after some of my own fact-gathering observations and quotes from a new book by Chris Hedges.

The Afghanistan war has taken its toll on US and allied troops. The most recent troop fatality figures that I could find were at the website http://icasualties.org/. From 2001 up through 2010 [not clear whether this includes July and after], there were a total of 2,147 fatalities among US and allied troops, 1,323 were US troops, 340 were UK troops, and 484 were "other." With respect to the wounded, Cause USA estimates that through July 31, 2010, there were 7,285 US troops wounded. Many of these troops will require medical and psychological assistance for years and in some cases for the rest of their lives. In addition, there are often extraordinary financial and psychological demands on the families of these troops.

Afghan civilian deaths were in the tens of thousands. You can find some estimates at Wikipedi, Civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

In his cogent new book, Death of the Liberal Class, Chris Hedges summarizes some of the financial costs of the war/occupation for US taxpayers and the misconceived foreign policies. He writes:

"Congress has approved $345 billion for the war in Afghanistan, which includes more than $40 billion for training and equipping the army and police, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan and Reconstruction. The United States spends an estimated $500,000 to $1 million per soldier or marine per year in Afghanistan, depending on whether expenditures on housing and equipment are included along with pay, food, and fuel. These funds do not include medical costs and veterans' compensation. Foreign aid to Afghanistan, including food and development assistance, has totaled $17 billion since 2002, according to the State Department and Congressional Research Service documents.

"But it is not the financial cost of the war that makes the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan so tragic, wasteful, and immoral. War as an instrument of change is brutal, savage, impersonal and counterproductive. It mocks the fantasy of individual heroism and the absurdity of utopian goals, such as the imposition of Western-style democracy or the liberation of women. In an instant, industrial warfare can kill dozens, even hundreds of people, who never see their attackers. The power of industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering....The wounds for those who survive, result in terrible burns, blindness, amputation, and lifelong pain and trauma. No one returns the same from such warfare. And once these weapons are employed, all talk of human rights is a farce."

We are in the grip of a powerful military establishment in the US. It gets significant help from elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, in the White House and Congress and from state governments. There is indeed a military-industrial complex, more so than ever before. The US is following a foreign policy that is based on military force and priorities. This is not all. There are geopolitical reasons for what we have been doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries, where the US has about 1,000 military bases. Our leaders are motivated by the aspiration of being a hegemon in the world and by the growing need to ensure America's corporations have privileged access to or control of increasingly scarce resources (e.g., oil and other minerals). The leaders give us the hogwash about wanting to create "democratic" regimes. See Hedges book to disabuse you of this nonsense. Also check out William Pfaff's just published book, The Irony of Manifest destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy. We need what seems impossible now, that is, a transformation of our society's priorities from war- and profit-oriented to a democratic socialist agenda that includes environmental preservation and regeneration.

Peter Preston's article:

Despicable Afghanistan endgame: Obama and Cameron knowingly ask soldiers to die in vain

The politicians are just waiting for a politically acceptable moment to proclaim a phoney triumph and leave the Afghans to their own devices. It is dismaying when soldiers die needlessly, says former Guardian editor Peter Preston. It is despicable when they are knowingly asked to die in vain.

By Peter PrestonThe Guardian11 October 2010
Downloaded from: http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2015/1/


You don't cry during TV news bulletins. But there I sat, a few nights ago, watery-eyed as a hero died again. Lieutenant Mark Evison of the Welsh Guards was back from the dead, gripping the imagination. His mother had wanted Channel 4 News to show the video of her son's last few hours on earth.

Evison, just 26, was leading his platoon on patrol in Helmand 18 months ago when the Taliban attacked. He couldn't get a radio connection to call for help, so he broke cover to try again. A bullet took him in the shoulder, rupturing an artery. His men carried Evison back inside their compound and called for an emergency helicopter. If he could get to a base hospital 20km away, perhaps the surgeons could save him. But the helicopter took 94 minutes to arrive. He bled to death.

Evison's mother wanted the film shown because she still sought answers to two questions. Were the radio signals really so frail that her son had had to put himself in harm's way to get a message through – and could a faster medical response have saved him? The answers on offer (via an inquest and a ritual Ministry of Defence statement) set your teeth on edge. An "extensive log" of the patrol's radio connections was produced, so the radios were working. (In which case, why did Evison make himself a target?) And no helicopter arriving even in seconds could have helped him: his wound was "unsurvivable".

Of course you can grow angry over duff equipment, duff support, duff military bureaucracy. But the filming of Evison's dying moments went beyond questions of kit and response time. This, in a way that Hollywood never contrives, was war: real chaos, real gallantry, real death.
Killing fields

I remember in northern Cyprus, once the shooting had subsided, looking down into a foxhole in a Turkish Cypriot garden, and seeing three young Turks lying at the bottom, shot to pieces. I remember travelling the Jammu sector as India and Pakistan fought yet again and seeing the bloated bodies of cows and bullocks alongside the bodies of dead infantry littering the killing fields of retreat. I remember our jeeps strafed by jets. I remember the chaos for myself.

Evison, by these lights, was just one more victim among millions stretching through history. Cue "war" as the darkest destroyer haunting mankind. But the grief, tinged with anger now, went beyond general revulsion over such folly. In death, as in life, stuff happens, which means that sometimes war can't be avoided, sometimes you have to fight.

In Afghanistan, though? In this particular war, with this particular rationale? It doesn't need a murdered aid worker and a botched rescue mission to show you that the reasons for carrying on grow more derisory day by day. Last week the Obama administration sent a report to Congress so feeble it barely crawled up the steps of Capitol Hill. The White House is scrabbling round looking for the nearest exit. Some leftover hawks, watching fuel convoys explode and supply lines blocked, natter about invading Pakistan. The insanity of the endgame.

No, the only "debate" here merely trades dates for Nato departure. Some, like the Dutch, have gone already. The Americans want to start going home next year. David Cameron is as eager as anyone to draw the last line under this misbegotten, failed foray. The last post cannot sound too soon. And that is the real reason to weep as Mark Evison's final moments flash across our screens.

So much bravery, loyalty, devotion; so many young lives snuffed out. But back in London or Brussels or Washington, other young men in expensive suits – who have never pulled on a uniform – are toiling over the politically acceptable moment to proclaim phoney triumph and leave the Afghans to their own devices. It is dismaying when soldiers die needlessly. It is despicable when they are knowingly asked to die in vain.

Indications that the war in Afghanistan will last for years to come

Rick Rozoff's article on Global Research.ca today describes developments in Afghanistan that indicate US military and allied forces will remain in the country for many years to come, as the number of occupational forces increase, the number of bases in Afghanistan and in surrounding countries increase, as military actions become more multifaceted, and despite the rising deaths and casualties among US and allied troops. Rozoff notes also that US troop and drone attacks in Pakistan are causing some tension in Pakistan-US relations. This, along with massive government corruption, increasing insurgent and Taliban advances, a lack of progress in meeting the needs of the great majority of Afghans, appear to conflict with the US generals' dreams of success.

Still, there is strong bipartisan support in the US Congress for the funding of this war. Last July, the Senate supported by a voice vote supplemental funding of over $30 billion for US military forces in Afghanistan. The House passed the request by a vote of 308 to 114. Obama then signed it. A few months later General Patraeus tested the waters, unofficially suggesting even more troops were needed. Congress has not dealt with any further requests. But, sadly, the Obama administration and the US Congress have a proven record of supporting American war efforts and increased military budgets when asked. A rubber-stamp. The US government and military appear not to be deterred in this unending war by rising US troop casualties and seem little concerned about Afghan deaths and the continuing devastation to that country's infrastructure, economy, education, health care, water, and other basic services.

Here are some paragraphs from Rozoff's article.

[....]
"October 7 will mark the advent of the tenth year of the US war in Afghanistan. NATO joined the war on September 12, 2001, "invoking its Article 5 collective military assistance clause." The combined US and NATO forces are referred to as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

[There is little doubt, though, that this is an American-led military occupation.]

"There are now at least 152,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 120,000 under NATO command [US dominates the command], according to several recent statements by American and NATO officials most if not all of them will remain there byond the 2011 withdrawal date announced by the American administration last year."

[....]
American and Alliance military bases have expanded into other central Asian countries - "Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan - and the elaboration of networks for the transit of troops, military equipment and supplies and for combat and training and bombing runs from Estonia and Latvia on the Baltic Sea to Georgia on the Black Sea and Azerbaijan and Turkmenistand on the Casbian Sea as well as in several other nations from Eastern Europe to the so-called Broader Middle East, including Pakistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Diego Garcia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Kazakhstan."

[....]
"US and NATO deaths for 2009 and so far this year account for over half of the total of 2,129 killed since the beginning of the war: 1,082."

[....]
Drone attacks are increasing. Rozoff: "The Washington Post...disclosed that massive intensification of drone warfare 'represents a significant evolution of an already controversial targeted killing program, run by the CIA, which in the past month...has been delivering what amounts to a cross-border bombing campaign in coordination with the conventional military operations a few miles away."

[....]
"The integrated strategy the US and NATO are purusing is threefold: Counterinsurgency operations, including targeted assassinations, in Afghanistan's eastern and southern povinces bordering Pakistan; an unprecedented escalation of drone missile strikes in northwestern Pakistan; and attacks by helicopter gunships in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in combination with drone strikes."

[....]
"The Pakistan government has 'halted NATO supply trucks and oil tankers from entering Afghanistan, which policy remainsin force with 160 vehicles stopped near the border on Oct. 5."

US troop casualties in Afghanistan are rising, contrary to Petraeus' claim

The basic point of Gareth Porter's well written and fact-based article is that the officially documented trend in US troop casualties in Afganistan contradict what Gen. Petraeus has publicly claimed. The evidence indicates the US troop casualties are rising. This trend challenges the general's position that counterinsurgency accompanied by more troops is quelling the Afghan insurgency. Rather than conceding the point that the counterinsurgency strategy is not working, other sources (some posted elsewhere on this blog) report that Patraeus wants more troops and more time to get the job done. If recent trends continue, Patraeus' strategy, backed by the Obama and his administration, means more US casualties as well.

Petraeus Spin on Afghan War Belied by Soaring Casualties
by Gareth Porter, September 10, 2010
http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2010/09/09/petraeus-spin-on-afghan-war-belied-by-soaring-casualties

Gen. David Petraeus claimed limited success this week in the war within a war over the Taliban’s planting of roadside bombs, but official Pentagon data shows the Taliban clearly winning that war by planting more bombs and killing many more U.S. and NATO troops since the troop surge began in early 2010.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Tuesday, Petraeus asserted that the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by the Taliban had "flattened" over the past year and attributed that alleged success to pressures by the U.S. military, and especially the increased tempo of Special Operations Forces raids against Taliban units.

Data provided by the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), however, shows that IEDs planted by Afghan insurgents killed nearly 40 percent more U.S. and NATO troops in the first eight months of 2010 than in the comparable period of 2009.

The data also show that Taliban IEDs wounded 2,025 U.S. and NATO troops in the first eight months of this year – almost twice the 1,035 wounded in the same months last year.
In the Journal interview, Petraeus said that the data on violent incidents in Afghanistan indicate a slowly improving security situation.

[....]

The total number of IED incidents in Afghanistan began to rise steeply in March 2010 to a new high of 1,087 and then continued to climb to 1,128 in May and again to 1,258 in August.

[....]

In late 2005, the civilian population was informing U.S. and NATO troops of about 15 percent of of all IEDs planted. That proportion fell to just over nine percent in 2006, to less than seven percent in 2007 to about three percent in 2008, and again to 2.8 percent in 2009.
In the first six months of 2010, that ratio dropped to 2.6 percent, and in May and June it fell to 1.4 and one percent, respectively.

[....]

The steep decline in the proportion of IEDs turned in by the population as more U.S. and NATO troops intruded on the Pashtun countryside is another reliable indicator – supporting opinion surveys in Helmand and Kandahar provinces – of the deterioration of relations between foreign troops and the population.

Afghan bank caught in huge ponzi scheme

Historian Juan Cole writes informed and insightful commentary on events in the Middle East, important political developments in the US, and much more, on his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. On today's blog, his first post deals with another case of corruption among friends of President Karzai. (See below.) The focus of the article is on the present crisis of Da Kabul Bank, which is embroiled in financial irregularities, suggesting a ponzi scheme, having a debt of $300 million, and facing a run on the bank by depositors. Cole writes that this corruption "could be catastrophic for the country." He is angered by the thought that so many troops from the US, NATO, and Afghanistan have given their lives for what is a corrupt and illegitimate government and for the rich thieves associated with it.

From our perspective, this is yet more evidence that we are on a fool's errand in Afghanistan, compounded immensely by a US military policy that lurches from one strategy to another and calls for extending the US-led occupation of Afghanistan for years into the future. In the meantime, there are profound costs to US taxpayers, in Afghan and US lives, and to the waning credibility of the US in Central Asia, the Middle East and around the world.


Collapse of Kabul Bank Points to Fatal Corruption of Karzai Government
Posted on September 3, 2010 by Juan Cole at http://juancole.com


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

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

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

Pajhwok News Service reports,

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

The same world-wide real estate crisis that abruptly revealed the ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff has undone Da Bank Kabul. But imagine if Madoff had not merely been a criminal who preyed on the wealthy, but had bankrolled a president’s political campaign with his ill-gotten gains and had brought the president’s brother and the brother of the vice-president into his inner circle. And imagine if he had been only one of a handful of financiers in New York with substantial capital.

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

Instead of wiring money overseas, as banks typically do, Farnood used a traditional money-transfer or hawala service, the New Ansari, which is also alleged to have been resorted to by drug smugglers, some of whose proceeds go to the Taliban and other insurgents that kill US troops. Money transferred by hawala cannot be traced electronically. The New Ansari itself is under investigation by US authorities. Persistent news reports suggest that billions of dollars in cash are being flown out of Afghanistan to Dubai, and that, let us say, irregularities are involved.
Farnood often gave out loans without proper collateral or other formalities. He loaned $100 million to Haseen Fahim, the brother of Marshal Mohammad Fahim (an old-time Northern Alliance warlord whom Karzai brought back into government as his vice-presidential running mate in summer of 2009). Haseen Fahim has substantial investments in Afghanistan’s small natural gas sector.

Farnood also apparently loaned himself $140 million to invest in real estate in Dubai, including in villas on the world islands off Jumeirah. These artificial islands made of landfill were to resemble the map of the globe once constructed, and were intended to give the wealthy the opportunity to own an entire faux country. Farnood has been flying out connected people like Mahmoud Karzai and Haseen Fahim and putting them up in the fancy chalets. Afghanistan is the fifth-poorest country in the world, with 36% of the population under the poverty line.

With the world economic downturn and real estate crash of 2008-2009, the Dubai world project largely fell apart, with investors going bankrupt in droves. Indeed, Dubai itself had to be bailed out by its rich sibling Abu Dhabi (which has petroleum; Dubai just has a financial sector). The artificial islands appear from NASA photos to have been abandoned since late 2009 when the own, Nakheel Properties, asked for a delay in repaying $29 billion in debt. Some seem to be sinking back into the lagoon or their boundaries are blurring. Close-up pictures of some of them show an eyesore.

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

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

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

NATO should not have allowed Karzai to steal the presidential election. (At least now we have more of an idea how the theft was accomplished). It should not have allowed him to block corruption investigations.

You have to wonder if the Afghanistan parliament is up to impeaching Karzai. One thing is certain. He is part of the problem, not the solution, and as long as he is at the helm, the situation is highly unlikely to get better.

And our troops will go on dying for a vague and probably unattainable goal that the politicians dress up in idealistic flourishes, and worse, dying for a lie.

Afghanistan - Holbrooke's ambiguous pipe-dream

Medea Benjamin identifies some of the highlights of Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke's testimony before and exchanges with members of the Foreign Relations Comittee. Her observations are incisive.

Holbrooke paints a rosy portrait of developments in Afghanistan, though he doesn't identify a timetable for the withdrawal of troops. He also doesn't give up the notion that the US would like to have access to some of Afghanistan's considerable mineral wealth. Sen. Kerry and others on the committe see parallels in Afghanistan with our terrible and failed war on Vietnam. If true, and it seems true, the US-led occupation of Afghanistan means more loss of Afghanistan and American lives and an enormous squandering of resources before it ends in defeat.

Afghan Envoy Holbrooke and Senate in La La Land
by Medea Benjamin, July 15, 2010

Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/15/afghan-envoy-holbrooke-and-senate-in-la-la-land/

“Man, those dudes are in La La Land,” a young intern said to me on the way out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanistan on June 14, his eyes rolling. “You can’t win in Afghanistan. Don’t they read history?”

It had been hard to sit through hours of Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke’s storytelling about some far-off land he called Afghanistan. In his Afghanistan, there were new gains in agriculture and a reduction on poppy production for opium. We were empowering women and rebuilding everything from the rule of law to the electrical grid. President Karzai was really intent on tackling corruption. There was an exciting soon-to-be-unveiled program to integrate the lower-level Taliban. We were making significant gains in training the Afghan security forces, and we had real commitments from the Pakistani government to crush Al Qaeda.

We’ve heard this tall tale for the past eight years, which made some of the Senators a bit skeptical—although not skeptical enough to stop funding the war.

The most skeptical were the Republicans, who also happen to be the most anxious to keep fighting there, indefinitely. Senator Bob Corker said that despite more than an hour of testimony by Holbrooke, “I have heard nothing, nothing” about how progress will be measured. “I have no earthly idea what our objectives are on the civilian front.”

Ranking Republican Richard Lugar was also confused about our objectives. Sometimes, he said, it seems that we are trying to “remake Afghan economic, political and security culture”, which is “beyond our resources and powers.” Other times it seems the goal is simply to prevent Afghanistan from being a haven for terrorists. Either way, Lugar didn’t think we could accomplish the President’s desire to begin withdrawal by July 2011.

Holbrooke, while trying to support the President, admitted that he was leery of setting a date certain for leaving. This is, after all, “not where you would choose to defend the American homeland…It’s the most remote and logistically difficult place the U.S. has ever fought in our history,” Holbrooke said, adding that “Fate and destiny have put us there.”

Senator John Kerry, the Committee chair, showed his imperial stripes when he complained that the Afghans weren’t stepping up to the plate. “The problem is that the key element of this strategy is the one over which we have the least control, and that is the willingness and ability of Afghans to assume ownership of the efforts,” Kerry lamented. All the billions and our best efforts are irrelevant, he said, if the Afghans continue to be bystanders in what they perceive as a fight between the West and Al Qaeda.

Holbrooke chided his predecessors who had trained Afghan security forces for years, at enormous costs, without realizing that we had to also teach them to read and write. Literacy, he assured the senators, is now part of our training. No one asked why the Taliban fighters, who are also illiterate, were outmaneuvering both the Afghan security forces and U.S. military.

Referring to the pending U.S. offensive in Kandahar, Kerry admitted that the presence of the U.S. military whips up the insurgency. “Prior to American troops announcing they were going to go in (to Kandahar), there were not assassinations. There was not a level of violence,” Kerry said. “The mere announcement has now brought on the process of assassination and intimidation, and I doubt that we are going to have enough troops to be able to pacify the city.”

Several times during the hearing Holbrooke insisted that Afghanistan was not the unwinnable war of Vietnam, and that we had real security issues in Afghanistan. Ironically, on the very same day of the hearing, Senator Kerry released—for the first time ever—some 1,200 pages of transcripts from private meetings 40 years ago of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Vietnam War. They showed the Senators expressing the same concerns about not having a reliable partner, getting overly-rosy reports from the administration, wondering how much the war would cost in lives and dollars, and having hard time picturing what victory might look like.

“Some of the parallels are almost eerie,” Kerry said, insisting the lawmakers should learn from the past. But that learning has escaped Kerry himself, who continues to support what has now become Obama’s Vietnam and America’s longest war.

The most concrete rationale for staying in Afghanistan emerged when the senators asked about recent reports of enormous mineral wealth such as copper and lithium. Holbrooke said the mineral wealth not a new discovery, but there were now modern techniques that now allowed the minerals to be more easily mined. Holbrooke assured the senators that we are helping Afghans develop their resources and strengthen their economy. Oh yes, he added, we want to make sure that the U.S. has “a level playing field” in getting access to those minerals.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Afghanistan, young soldiers are assuring that “level playing field” with their lives. On the day of the hearing, eight soldiers were killed, bringing to 33 the number of American troops killed this month amid the worst bloodshed of the nine-year conflict.

The young intern who spoke to me about La La Land has more sense than Obama, Holbrooke or the Congress that continues to fund this disaster. Or maybe he is just less jaded than politicians like Senator Lugar who supports the war but remarked, during the hearing, that the U.S. had become stuck in a “slow-motion caravan to ultimate failure.” La La Land, it seems, is not poor Afghanistan, but Washington DC, where politicians send our youth off to fight and die in an endless war they themselves don’t believe in.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK (www.codepink.org) and Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org).

Obama's rhetoric conflicts with facts on ground in Afghanistan

Under the Radar: Afghanistan in Ruins – Evidence on the Ground Contradicts Obama’s Promises to Defeat Terrorists and Promote Stability

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Media-ocracy (Anthony Dimaggio)

A Media-ocracy News Report, http://media-ocracy.com

Violence in Afghanistan spiked in 2010 in light of the U.S. “surge,” its targeting of the Taliban, and growing attacks on Afghan civilians. Attacks reached an all time high since the U.S. invaded in 2001, according to the group Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM). ARM estimates that more than 1,000 civilians have been killed this year, with another 1,500 injured, while the Taliban “has become more resilient, multi-structured and deadly.”

The U.S. is said to be responsible for approximately one third of all the civilian deaths, although Taliban forces were found to have incited more than 60 percent of all deaths. The recent ARM report from this month represents an important admission from those on the ground that the U.S. promise to help “stabilize” Afghanistan and reduce violence and terrorism remain more rhetoric than reality. The 140,000 troops the U.S. has added to Afghanistan appear to have increased the threat to Afghans by causing an escalation of violence to the point where the country is further spiraling out of control.

Recent social indicators from the United Nations indicate that Afghanistan remains one of the worst off countries in the world. Life expectancy is at a pitiful 44 years, as the country ranks the second lowest in this area (behind only Niger) in all countries throughout the globe. The 2009 UN Human Development Index finds that Afghanistan remains in the bottom 10 percent of countries in terms of its Gross Domestic Product, in the bottom 20 percent in terms of literacy, in the bottom four percent in life expectancy, and in the bottom 30 percent in child malnutrition. Afghanistan excels in one area, however: outmigration. Afghanistan actually finishes in the top 30 percent of countries in terms of people leaving the country, a damning indication of the dangers civilians face throughout the U.S.-NATO occupation.

The Afghan war’s popularity is at a historic low as of mid 2010. Americans appear to be recognizing that the situation in the country is not improving, but in fact worsening in terms of Afghan civilian and U.S. soldiers’ lives lost. Growing public opposition is a testament to the weakness of Obama’s rhetorical defense of the war, which is becoming less convincing each day. According to Newsweek polling, the percent of Americans opposing Obama’s handling of the war increased by a whopping 26 percent from just 27 percent of Americans in February to 55 percent in June. According to Washington Post-ABC polling, while 52 percent of Americans thought the war was “worth fighting” immediately following Obama’s December 2009 speech, that figure fell to 44 percent by early June 2010. General opposition to the war as not “worth” it reached a majority of Americans by April of this year.

The Afghan War, Up Close and Personal

U.S. casualties throughout 2010 have been the worst in the war’s history. They averaged 32 per month, compared to the average of 26 per month in 2009 and 13 deaths per month in 2009. U.S. casualty rates have actually increased steadily every year since 2001, a sign of the increasing toll the war is exacting on the American people. The story of growing U.S. deaths, however, has remained largely under the radar in the American press, which has rarely featured any stories about the historical levels casualties since it first emphasized the topic in late 2009. It appears that journalists have learned well the lesson not to “rock the boat” for a war in which both parties are strongly supportive, despite the growing public rebellion.

Additional reasons to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan

Here are parts of what you can find today (July 1, 2010) on Juan Coles' award-winning blog, Informed Comment. One focuses on rising US troop deaths in Afghanistan, which appear to be the result of growing aggressiveness by group identified as Taliban. The other part reports that the US Congress has cut $4 billion out of civilian aid to Afghanistan.

In short, Gen. Patraeus maintains that rising troop casualties are to be expected as the counter-insurgency strategy is implemented. The Congress justifies its reduction in civilian aid to Afghanistan by saying that too much of it ends up in the wrong hands and for unintended purposes.

From our perspective, these two examples provide additional evidence that the US occupation of Afghanistan is mired in chaotic conditions, that US troops are suffering from the make-it-up-as-you-go occupation and interventions. And, further, the White House and US Congress should withhold additional funding for Afghanistan and affirm their support for a substantial and continuing withdrawal of troops no later than in July 2011,


Posted on July 1, 2010 by Juan

As the Senate confirmed Gen. David Petraeus as commander of US troops in Afghanistan, CNN estimated that 101 NATO troops (including Americans) were killed in June, the highest total ever since the NATO presence began in 2001. The Pentagon maintains that such a spike in troop deaths is to be expected given the counter-insurgency push that began this winter, in which troops were given the task of ‘taking, clearing, holding and building’ in Pashtun territory.

Taliban guerrillas boldly attacked a NATO air base at the eastern Pashtun city of Jalabad on Tuesday. A Taliban spokesman said that the operation was intended to send a signal to Gen. Petraeus, that they considered him no different from any other general. At least one NATO soldier was killed in the assault becoming death number 101 for June). A Taliban spokesman said that six of them detonated their payloads or were killed, while 4 escaped. NATO said that there were 6-8 attackers and all were killed. The Pajhwok News Agency reports, “A top Afghan army official on the base, Col. Jahangir Azimi, said six attackers, equipped with two machine guns, automatic rifles and a rocket launcher, stormed the airbase from its northern gate. One bomber blew himself up at the gate and the rest of the attackers infiltrated the camp, he added. Two of the bombers were killed by Afghan soldiers and three others were hunted by NATO choppers which were immediately called after the explosion, Col. Azimi further said.”

Aljazeera English has video:

The battle of Marawara in the eastern Kunar province between NATO forces and Taliban continued on Wednesday. It began on Sunday, when two US troops and a third NATO soldier were killed.

Meanwhile, Congress cut $4 billion out of civilian aid to Afghanistan, owing to fears that it was just being eaten up by corruption. Afghanistan is listed as the second most corrupt country in the world after Somalia by Transparency International, and reports have circulated for months about mysterious large shipments of cash out of Kabul airport to Dubai. It has also been alleged that money paid to security contractors in Afghanistan who oversee the safety of US convoys is often in turn paid out to Taliban as a bribe not to attack the convoys. Still, the civilian aid money is crucial to the Obama administration’s counter-insurgency campaign, and it had been hoped that providing, e.g., more electricity to Pashtun areas such as the city of Qandahar might help NATO and the Karzai government blunt the appeal of the Taliban there. Apparently, though, the money was not so much denied as put in escrow until a better general accounting system can be put in to keep track of it.

Bribes in Afghanistan may be funding Taliban

The US military and US government prove to be endless in the ways that try to recreate, justify, and implement the US-led war and occupation in Afghanistan. The following article addresses the issue of how US money ends up as bribes to Taliban fighters. Why? The Taliban are needed to protect US supply trucks. What a sheer waste of money and resources, not to mention the casualties to US and allied troops and the greater destruction and casualties suffered by Afghani civilians. This war goes on not to advance "democratic values." It goes on because US leaders believe that Afghanistan is important to their larger interests in the oil-rich Central Asia and Middle East regions. It goes on because our bloated military-industrial complex needs wars to justify its continued government support. US wars yield great harm, hatred of the US, and a distraction from, or underfunding of, many other efforts needed to confront the monumental crises confronting the US and the world.


Kucinich: ‘We may be funding our own killers in Afghanistan’

By Sahil KapurTuesday, June 8th, 2010
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0608/kucinich-war-critics-rebuke-usfunded-bribes-afghan-militants

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Click for New York Times story: US-backed 'bribes' in Afghanistan may be funding Taliban

On June 7, the day Afghanistan became America’s longest-ever war, the New York Times reported on an ongoing investigation poised to prove that private security companies "are using American money to bribe the Taliban" to fuel combat and thus enhance demand for their services. The news follows a "series of events last month that suggested all-out collusion with the insurgents," the Times said.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a leading opponent of the war, wondered, "Is the U.S. paying for attacks on U.S. troops?”

"Our troops are dying in Afghanistan, and now it turns out we may be funding their killers," Kucinich said in a statement e-mailed to Raw Story, renewing his longstanding call for a pullout. "Our continued presence in Afghanistan is detrimental to our security."

"The American people are paying to prop up a corrupt government that may be using our money to pay private companies to drum up business by paying the insurgents to attack our troops," he said.

Kucinich’s motion in March to implement a swift withdrawal of US troops from the region failed by a margin of 365-65 in the House.

"In the coming weeks, Congress is expected to be asked to give another $33 billion for war efforts... I will be bringing this report to the personal attention of individual Members of Congress prior to the vote on any additional war funding," the Ohio congressman said.
The Times interviewed a NATO official in Kabul who "believed millions of dollars were making their way to the Taliban."

A White House spokesperson did not return a request for comment.

Robert Greenwald, an ardent war critic and director of the 2009 documentary "Rethink Afghanistan," viewed the Times story as vindication for his message.

“Supporting a corrupt elite in a civil war does nothing to make us safer, costs the United States billions of dollars, and it’s not working,” Greenwald told Raw Story.

It "confirms what we have heard numerous times from our friends, co workers and producers in Afghanistan. The United States is effectively funding both sides of the war all too often," he said.
The administration and large bipartisan majorities in Congress continue to support and fund 8-year-long military operations in Afghanistan, warning that a pullout could lead to a Taliban takeover and greater threats to American interests.

Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters Monday that the US, Japan, Britain and other countries have “committed” roughly “200 million dollars” to fund peace efforts in Afghanistan, Agence-France Presse reports. The Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program aims to reintegrate Taliban fighters who have renounced violence into Afghan society.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich offers a resolution to consider ending Afghan war

Kucinich: Afghanistan “Awash with U.S. cash and U.S. blood”
Washington, Feb 26 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement about the ongoing war in Afghanistan:

“The Washington Post reports that nearly one billion dollars per year in cash, suspected to include U.S. aid, opium receipts or both, is moving from Afghanistan to Dubai, where friends and family of Afghanistan’s President Karzai have multimillion dollar villas.

“Dubai real estate deals and a number of crooked enterprises connected to the Karzai family have created crony capitalism in a country awash with U.S. cash and U.S. blood.

“Nearly 1000 U.S. soldiers have died. And for what? Hundreds of billions spent. And for what? To make Afghanistan safe for crooks, drug dealers and crony capitalism?

“Next Thursday, I will bring a privileged resolution to this House so that Congress can claim our constitutional right to end this war and to bring our troops home. Please support the resolution.”
Kucinich will introduce the resolution on Thursday, March 4, 2010. It is expected that the resolution will be taken up for consideration on the following Wednesday, March 10, 2010 and that the debate will be subject to a rule providing for three hours of debate.