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.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Afghan victims of US war - some examples
The major US media do not do a good job on covering how the ravages of the US/NATO war in Afghanistan affect Afghan civilians. Norman Solomon’s book War Made Easy provides one overview of the evidence.The media do report regularly on the deaths of US troops, the battle plans of the generals in charge, the battles against “the Taliban” or insurgents and their rising or declining influence, sometimes the details of specific US troop engagements, and how the training and use of Afghan police and troops is going. But the effects on the Afghan people are largely absent or on inside pages.
The coverage of these horrific events is better on antiwar and many liberal- or leftist- oriented internet sites or blogs. These sources are more apt to lift the veil on atrocities committed by US military forces. Here are some excerpts from some stories posted on various internet sites in February and March of this year.
strong>Civilian casualties up
February 2, 2010 – Derrick Crowe, political director of the Brave New Foundation posted an article on Huffington Post titled “2010: Worst Year for Civilian Deaths in the Afghanistan War.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/2010-worst-year-for-civil_b_817308.html
Crowe writes that 2010 “was the worst year for civilian deaths in the war so far, and irregular armed troops backed by the US and by the Afghan government are preying on the population while recruiting and abusing children.” His evidence comes from the latest assessment from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (.PDF):
"
Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010: the combined numbers of Afghan and foreign forces surpassed 350,000; security incidents mounted to over 100 per week; more fighters from all warring side were killed; and the number of civilian people killed, wounded and displaced hit record levels.
...From 1 January to 31 December 2010, at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan. This means everyday 6-7 noncombatants were killed and 8-9 were wounded in the war.
...In addition to civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of people were affected in various ways by the intensified armed violence in Afghanistan in 2010. Tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes or deprived of healthcare and education services and livelihood opportunities due to the continuation of war in their home areas.
"Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are widely considered as the most lethal tools which killed over 690 civilians in 2010. However, as you will read in this report, there is virtually no information about the use of cluster munitions by US/NATO forces. Despite Afghanistan's accession to the international Anti-Cluster Bomb Treaty in 2008, the US military has allegedly maintained stockpiles of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.
"A second key issue highlighted in this report is the emergence of the irregular armed groups in parts of Afghanistan which are backed by the Afghan Government and its foreign allies. These groups have been deplored as criminal and predatory by many Afghans and have already been accused of severe human rights violations such as child recruitment and sexual abuse."
Inreasingly, children are victims
February 14, 2011 - M. Lederer posts “Afghanistan Child Victims on the Rise – UN Report,” on Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/15/afghanistan-child-victims-rising_n_823369.html The UN report in question was released in early February and documents that
“An increasing number of children have been killed and injured in the conflict in Afghanistan, mostly by the Taliban and other anti-government groups… Lederer continues: “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report, which covers a two-year period from September 1, 2008 to Aug. 30, 2010, that children continue to be victims of suicide and rocket attacks, improvised explosive devices, and military operations by the Taliban and other armed groups as well as Afghan and international forces.
“The report cites examples of children used to carry out suicide attacks and plant bombs, and the recruitment of youngsters by armed groups as well as by the Afghan National Security Forces, despite a government ban on including anyone under the age of 18 in the military or police. […]
"In 2010, the report found that women and children made up a greater proportion of those killed and injured than in 2009, with child casualties increasing 55 percent from the same period in 2009. “It said three-quarters of the civilian casualties were linked to the Taliban and other armed opposition groups, an increase of 53 percent from 2009.
"On the other hand, civilian casualties attributable to pro-government forces decreased by 30 percent compared to the first half of 2009…” […]
"The report further indicatd the recruitment and use of children by all parties to the conflict was observed throughout the country during the two-year reporting period. The U.N. said it was able to verify 26 of 47 reported incidents, including several cases of children used – sometimes unwittingly – to carry out suicide attacks and seven cases of children recruited from across the border in Pakistan. […]
Information was collected from across the country on some 382 children detained on charges related to national security and 97 cases were confirmed as relating to the conflict. 'All were aged between 9 and 17 and included one girl,' it said.”Afghanistan Barack Obama
Killing civilians from helicopters by mistake is a war crime February 24, 2011 - Jason Ditz reports for Antiwar.com on a “NATO Helicopter Kills Five Afghan Civilians, Including Two Children, http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/24/nato-helicopter-kills-five-afghan-civilians-including-two-children
“Five Afghan civilians in the deseprately poor Kapisa Province were killed today by NATO troops while they were out hunting. NATO saw them, three men with bird-hunting rifles and two boys (aged 12 and 13), assumed they were insurgents, killing them. […]
"The killings are just the latest in a growing string of embarrassing NATO killings of civilians in the northeastern part of the country. Last week NATO killed scores of civilians in Kunar, and earlier this week bombed a family in their home in Nangarhar.
General Patraeus apologizes for troops killing children March 2, 2011 - Jason Ditz posts this news item on Antiwar.com; http://news/antiwar/com/2011/03/02/patraeus-apologizes-for-killing-nine-afghan-children “General Davis Petraeus today announced that the US is “deeply sorry” for yesterday’s air strike in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, a strike which killed nine children who were collecting firewood. “’
"'These deaths should never have happened,' Petraeus insisted in the wake of angry condemnation from President Hamid Karzai and public protests on the streets of the Kunar Province, where there was already anger about a NATO offensive which killed 65 other civilians last month.” […]
Human costs of this war are not captured in numbers
March 4, 2001 – Kathy Kelly posts an article on CommonDreams.org titled “The Cost of US Terrorism in Afghanistan: Incalculable.” Kelly is the coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence. The full article is at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/04.
She writes that “while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3% took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections.” The down economy was much more important than the war and its human effects.
Continuing: “U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kumar province, shooting them 'one after another' this past Tuesday March 1st. ('The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.' (NYT 3/2/11)). [...]
“Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. “The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,” said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. 'I myself was involved in the burial,' Noori said. 'Yesterday we buried them.' (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.
Kelly gives others examples of atrocities, including the following one: He [Patraeus] has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. ‘In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed,’ the police commander said. “’Another child was injured.’” [...]
She also points to the widespread poverty and refugees, the conditions of which affect millions of the Afghan people, including children and then concludes her article with these words: “Sometimes the issue is right in front of us – as it was to those helicopter crews - it’s up close so there can be no mistake as to what we are doing. According to the election polls we see the cost of war, dimly, but, as with the helicopter crews, it doesn’t affect - or prevent - our decisions. Afterwards we deplore the tragedy; we make a pretense of acknowledging the cost of war, but it is incalculable. We can’t hope to count it. We actually, finally, have to stop making people like the nine children who died on March 1st, pay it.”
Intentional Targeting of Civilians by US and allied forces
March 8, 2011 – CommonDreams.org published an article by Afghans for Peace, “Afghan Civilians Intentionally Targeted by NATO/ISAF forces” http://commondreams.org/view/2011/03/08-6
The article opens as follows: “Careful examination of numerous reports, and images/video footage, along with eye-witness and victim testimonies, clarify that Afghan civilians are the main targets of deadly attacks by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Although the Coalition forces claim that previous civilian massacres were accidental, Afghan-led peace movements believe that the killings are at best negligent to at worst intentional in nature."
Here are examples from the article.
“In Nangarhar province on February 20th, an entire family of six was killed by a NATO air strike into their home in the Khoygani district. A photo captured by Reuters shows that the missile directly hit the roof of the family’s home. The parents and their four children were all inside when the reportedly stray missile landed in their residential community. The father was a soldier for the Afghan National Army who died of excessive bleeding after troops delayed his arrival to a hospital.
“After a four day operation by ISAF and NATO in Kunar province over 65 civilians. More than half of the casualties were women and children, and this was confirmed by the governor of the province. Contrary to the abundant evidence, NATO claimed no civilians were killed and later insisted that insurgents were among the deceased, although villagers rejected this assertion. […] “Without regard for civilians, the Tarok Kolache village in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley was completely destroyed with 25 tons of bombs. Is the destruction of entire villages, which are the support system for the majority of Afghans, a logical tactic in counter-insurgency? Clearly, the Afghans who have suffered due to this disagree. A farmer of the Arghandab district asked
'Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?', while one angry villager accused the military of ruining his life after the demolition. [...]
“...In September 2010, it was revealed that a dozen US soldiers faced charges in their involvement of not only killing innocent Afghan civilians at random for sport, but also collecting the victims finger bones, leg bones, teeth, and skulls as trophies. The military refuses to release photos that show US soldiers posing with naked, mutilated and charred corpses of their victims. Sound familiar? The father of one of the victims killed was quoted as saying, 'The Americans really love to kill innocent people.'
"In fact, they had planned on killing more civilians had it not been for one soldier, Spc. Adam Winfield, and his father who tried relentlessly to blow the whistle. He had said his squad leader 'gives high-fives to the guy who kills innocent people and plans more with him.- I have proof that they are planning another one in the form of an AK-47 (machine gun) they want to drop on another guy.' Instead of honoring Winfield for exposing the truth, he was instead charged with the same crimes. His father had reported Winfeld’s statements to Army officials, but they turned a blind eye.
One can’t help but to wonder whether the killing of civilians for sport is more abhorrent or the apparent negligence and silence by the higher ups in the Armed forces. "
The occupation has done nothing good ovrall to change the conditions of the Afghan people.
Afghans for Peace. “The almost decade long war and occupation has done more harm than good, escalating violence in Afghanistan to its peak, and continues to deteriorate chances of peace for the future. Afghanistan has already been subjected to previous decades of war and now each new generation is haunted with both the memory and reality of endless bloodshed, death, and misery. The fact remains that Afghans continue to live with hunger and worsening poverty, torture and humiliation, planted with weapons, escalating air strikes and night raids. [...]
The Afghan people must be given a chance to makes decisions about their own future. “It is the right of the people to decide the fate of their country and there are no exceptions. With the recent revolts in Arab countries, it’s only a matter of time before Afghans follow their lead. This requires immediate change and an honest vision for a truly democratic Afghanistan. In doing so, we must be aware of the ground realities, namely the presence of NATO, Taliban, warlords as well as regional intervention.”
Signed by:Afghans for PeaceAfghan Youth Peace VolunteersAfghan Canadian Student Association
The point:
"Too many of us in the US are ignorant of the harm our military forces do to the Afghan people and others, or don’t care, or are preoccupied or overwhelmed by the challenges of their own lives, or who see the Afghan people as inferior or demons and not worth thinking about in this global “war on terrorism.”
But, whether we know the war/occupation or not, whether we support it passively or actively, it continues and millions of Afghan people suffer the agonizing consequences. Words are hardly sufficient for conveying the horrors of this and other wars. To hear and feel the tragedy of war, google A Children’s Prayer – Baylor Men’s Choir
The coverage of these horrific events is better on antiwar and many liberal- or leftist- oriented internet sites or blogs. These sources are more apt to lift the veil on atrocities committed by US military forces. Here are some excerpts from some stories posted on various internet sites in February and March of this year.
strong>Civilian casualties up
February 2, 2010 – Derrick Crowe, political director of the Brave New Foundation posted an article on Huffington Post titled “2010: Worst Year for Civilian Deaths in the Afghanistan War.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/2010-worst-year-for-civil_b_817308.html
Crowe writes that 2010 “was the worst year for civilian deaths in the war so far, and irregular armed troops backed by the US and by the Afghan government are preying on the population while recruiting and abusing children.” His evidence comes from the latest assessment from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (.PDF):
"
Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010: the combined numbers of Afghan and foreign forces surpassed 350,000; security incidents mounted to over 100 per week; more fighters from all warring side were killed; and the number of civilian people killed, wounded and displaced hit record levels.
...From 1 January to 31 December 2010, at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan. This means everyday 6-7 noncombatants were killed and 8-9 were wounded in the war.
...In addition to civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of people were affected in various ways by the intensified armed violence in Afghanistan in 2010. Tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes or deprived of healthcare and education services and livelihood opportunities due to the continuation of war in their home areas.
"Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are widely considered as the most lethal tools which killed over 690 civilians in 2010. However, as you will read in this report, there is virtually no information about the use of cluster munitions by US/NATO forces. Despite Afghanistan's accession to the international Anti-Cluster Bomb Treaty in 2008, the US military has allegedly maintained stockpiles of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.
"A second key issue highlighted in this report is the emergence of the irregular armed groups in parts of Afghanistan which are backed by the Afghan Government and its foreign allies. These groups have been deplored as criminal and predatory by many Afghans and have already been accused of severe human rights violations such as child recruitment and sexual abuse."
Inreasingly, children are victims
February 14, 2011 - M. Lederer posts “Afghanistan Child Victims on the Rise – UN Report,” on Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/15/afghanistan-child-victims-rising_n_823369.html The UN report in question was released in early February and documents that
“An increasing number of children have been killed and injured in the conflict in Afghanistan, mostly by the Taliban and other anti-government groups… Lederer continues: “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report, which covers a two-year period from September 1, 2008 to Aug. 30, 2010, that children continue to be victims of suicide and rocket attacks, improvised explosive devices, and military operations by the Taliban and other armed groups as well as Afghan and international forces.
“The report cites examples of children used to carry out suicide attacks and plant bombs, and the recruitment of youngsters by armed groups as well as by the Afghan National Security Forces, despite a government ban on including anyone under the age of 18 in the military or police. […]
"In 2010, the report found that women and children made up a greater proportion of those killed and injured than in 2009, with child casualties increasing 55 percent from the same period in 2009. “It said three-quarters of the civilian casualties were linked to the Taliban and other armed opposition groups, an increase of 53 percent from 2009.
"On the other hand, civilian casualties attributable to pro-government forces decreased by 30 percent compared to the first half of 2009…” […]
"The report further indicatd the recruitment and use of children by all parties to the conflict was observed throughout the country during the two-year reporting period. The U.N. said it was able to verify 26 of 47 reported incidents, including several cases of children used – sometimes unwittingly – to carry out suicide attacks and seven cases of children recruited from across the border in Pakistan. […]
Information was collected from across the country on some 382 children detained on charges related to national security and 97 cases were confirmed as relating to the conflict. 'All were aged between 9 and 17 and included one girl,' it said.”Afghanistan Barack Obama
Killing civilians from helicopters by mistake is a war crime February 24, 2011 - Jason Ditz reports for Antiwar.com on a “NATO Helicopter Kills Five Afghan Civilians, Including Two Children, http://news.antiwar.com/2011/02/24/nato-helicopter-kills-five-afghan-civilians-including-two-children
“Five Afghan civilians in the deseprately poor Kapisa Province were killed today by NATO troops while they were out hunting. NATO saw them, three men with bird-hunting rifles and two boys (aged 12 and 13), assumed they were insurgents, killing them. […]
"The killings are just the latest in a growing string of embarrassing NATO killings of civilians in the northeastern part of the country. Last week NATO killed scores of civilians in Kunar, and earlier this week bombed a family in their home in Nangarhar.
General Patraeus apologizes for troops killing children March 2, 2011 - Jason Ditz posts this news item on Antiwar.com; http://news/antiwar/com/2011/03/02/patraeus-apologizes-for-killing-nine-afghan-children “General Davis Petraeus today announced that the US is “deeply sorry” for yesterday’s air strike in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, a strike which killed nine children who were collecting firewood. “’
"'These deaths should never have happened,' Petraeus insisted in the wake of angry condemnation from President Hamid Karzai and public protests on the streets of the Kunar Province, where there was already anger about a NATO offensive which killed 65 other civilians last month.” […]
Human costs of this war are not captured in numbers
March 4, 2001 – Kathy Kelly posts an article on CommonDreams.org titled “The Cost of US Terrorism in Afghanistan: Incalculable.” Kelly is the coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence. The full article is at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/04.
She writes that “while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3% took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections.” The down economy was much more important than the war and its human effects.
Continuing: “U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kumar province, shooting them 'one after another' this past Tuesday March 1st. ('The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.' (NYT 3/2/11)). [...]
“Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. “The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,” said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. 'I myself was involved in the burial,' Noori said. 'Yesterday we buried them.' (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.
Kelly gives others examples of atrocities, including the following one: He [Patraeus] has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. ‘In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed,’ the police commander said. “’Another child was injured.’” [...]
She also points to the widespread poverty and refugees, the conditions of which affect millions of the Afghan people, including children and then concludes her article with these words: “Sometimes the issue is right in front of us – as it was to those helicopter crews - it’s up close so there can be no mistake as to what we are doing. According to the election polls we see the cost of war, dimly, but, as with the helicopter crews, it doesn’t affect - or prevent - our decisions. Afterwards we deplore the tragedy; we make a pretense of acknowledging the cost of war, but it is incalculable. We can’t hope to count it. We actually, finally, have to stop making people like the nine children who died on March 1st, pay it.”
Intentional Targeting of Civilians by US and allied forces
March 8, 2011 – CommonDreams.org published an article by Afghans for Peace, “Afghan Civilians Intentionally Targeted by NATO/ISAF forces” http://commondreams.org/view/2011/03/08-6
The article opens as follows: “Careful examination of numerous reports, and images/video footage, along with eye-witness and victim testimonies, clarify that Afghan civilians are the main targets of deadly attacks by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Although the Coalition forces claim that previous civilian massacres were accidental, Afghan-led peace movements believe that the killings are at best negligent to at worst intentional in nature."
Here are examples from the article.
“In Nangarhar province on February 20th, an entire family of six was killed by a NATO air strike into their home in the Khoygani district. A photo captured by Reuters shows that the missile directly hit the roof of the family’s home. The parents and their four children were all inside when the reportedly stray missile landed in their residential community. The father was a soldier for the Afghan National Army who died of excessive bleeding after troops delayed his arrival to a hospital.
“After a four day operation by ISAF and NATO in Kunar province over 65 civilians. More than half of the casualties were women and children, and this was confirmed by the governor of the province. Contrary to the abundant evidence, NATO claimed no civilians were killed and later insisted that insurgents were among the deceased, although villagers rejected this assertion. […] “Without regard for civilians, the Tarok Kolache village in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley was completely destroyed with 25 tons of bombs. Is the destruction of entire villages, which are the support system for the majority of Afghans, a logical tactic in counter-insurgency? Clearly, the Afghans who have suffered due to this disagree. A farmer of the Arghandab district asked
'Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?', while one angry villager accused the military of ruining his life after the demolition. [...]
“...In September 2010, it was revealed that a dozen US soldiers faced charges in their involvement of not only killing innocent Afghan civilians at random for sport, but also collecting the victims finger bones, leg bones, teeth, and skulls as trophies. The military refuses to release photos that show US soldiers posing with naked, mutilated and charred corpses of their victims. Sound familiar? The father of one of the victims killed was quoted as saying, 'The Americans really love to kill innocent people.'
"In fact, they had planned on killing more civilians had it not been for one soldier, Spc. Adam Winfield, and his father who tried relentlessly to blow the whistle. He had said his squad leader 'gives high-fives to the guy who kills innocent people and plans more with him.- I have proof that they are planning another one in the form of an AK-47 (machine gun) they want to drop on another guy.' Instead of honoring Winfield for exposing the truth, he was instead charged with the same crimes. His father had reported Winfeld’s statements to Army officials, but they turned a blind eye.
One can’t help but to wonder whether the killing of civilians for sport is more abhorrent or the apparent negligence and silence by the higher ups in the Armed forces. "
The occupation has done nothing good ovrall to change the conditions of the Afghan people.
Afghans for Peace. “The almost decade long war and occupation has done more harm than good, escalating violence in Afghanistan to its peak, and continues to deteriorate chances of peace for the future. Afghanistan has already been subjected to previous decades of war and now each new generation is haunted with both the memory and reality of endless bloodshed, death, and misery. The fact remains that Afghans continue to live with hunger and worsening poverty, torture and humiliation, planted with weapons, escalating air strikes and night raids. [...]
The Afghan people must be given a chance to makes decisions about their own future. “It is the right of the people to decide the fate of their country and there are no exceptions. With the recent revolts in Arab countries, it’s only a matter of time before Afghans follow their lead. This requires immediate change and an honest vision for a truly democratic Afghanistan. In doing so, we must be aware of the ground realities, namely the presence of NATO, Taliban, warlords as well as regional intervention.”
Signed by:Afghans for PeaceAfghan Youth Peace VolunteersAfghan Canadian Student Association
The point:
"Too many of us in the US are ignorant of the harm our military forces do to the Afghan people and others, or don’t care, or are preoccupied or overwhelmed by the challenges of their own lives, or who see the Afghan people as inferior or demons and not worth thinking about in this global “war on terrorism.”
But, whether we know the war/occupation or not, whether we support it passively or actively, it continues and millions of Afghan people suffer the agonizing consequences. Words are hardly sufficient for conveying the horrors of this and other wars. To hear and feel the tragedy of war, google A Children’s Prayer – Baylor Men’s Choir
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Malalai Joya versus US State Department
Malalai Joya versus US State Department
Malalai Joya is widely acclaimed across the globe for her work as an Afghan citizen, former elected official, as a critic of the Karzai’s government, warlords, druglords, the Taliban and oppressors of women, as an indomitable activist, as an author, and as an opponent of the US/NATO war and occupation. Why does she deserve wide attention? You can get a sense of her well-deserved achievements at Wikipedia, Malalai Joya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Entry Visa Denied
This extraordinary woman made the news on March 19, 2011, and ensuing days when she was initially denied an entry visa by the US embassy in Afghanistan to re-visit the United States. Joya had been scheduled for a three-week speaking tour in the US to discuss the paperback edition of her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, written with Derrick O’Keefe, along with her views on the US/NATO war/occupation of her country and other issues.
She has long taken the position that all foreign troops should leave the country as soon as possible, not a slow multi-year withdrawal of troops, not a continuing occupation until 2014 or later, but a full withdrawal as soon as possible, certainly sometime this year.
Reason for rejection of Visa: Bureaucratic rigidity?
The Afghanistan Women’s Mission identifies the official US reasons for the visa rejection, namely, that “[c]olleagues of Ms. Joya’s report that when she presented herself as scheduled at the U.S. embassy, she was told she was being denied because she was ‘unemployed’ and ‘lives underground.’ http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?p+1255"
It is true that Joya lives “underground” and may thus not conform to the rigid bureaucratic visa rules of the US State Department, but, hey, she does so to protect her life for having spoken the truth about the Karzai government, warlords, Taliban, and the war/occupation.
Here is what the Afghan Women’s Mission has to say about it. “Because of her harsh criticism of warlords and fundamentalists in Afghanistan, she has been the target of at least five assassination attempts. ‘The reason Joya lives underground is because she faces the constant threat of death for having had the courage to speak up for women’s rights – it’s obscene that the U.S. government would deny her entry,’ said Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S. based organization that has hosted Joya for speaking tours in the past and is a sponsor of this year’s national tour.”
Reason for rejection: Ideological exclusion?
Opposition to US decision quickly grew.
The news spread on the internet, stirring a widespread furor over the embassy’s decision to reject Joya’s request for an entry visa. Derrick O’Keefe gives some sense of this outpouring of support for Malalai Joya. In a post on malalaijoya.com, he shares his observations. “In just a few days, over 2500 people have signed an to protest the denial of a U.S. travel visa to Afghan women's rights activist and author Malalai Joya, who was to make a three-week U.S. tour to promote the updated edition of A Woman Among Warlords.
O’Keefe adds: “The effort to overturn this visa denial continues. On March 18, a letter signed by six congresspeople and three senators urged that Joya be allowed the right to travel and complete her book tour in the United States.”
US rescinds its earlier decision and grants Malalai Joya an entry visa, as she originally requested
The Afghan Women’s Mission happily posted that “US Responds to Broad Public Campaign, Grants Malalai Joya Visa!” http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?p=1301.
Here are excerpts:
“A U.S. Embassy today granted acclaimed Afghan human rights activist and former MP Malalai Joya, a visa, a little over a week after she was initially turned down….
“Afghan Women’s Mission’s Co-Director Sonali Kolhatkar responded to the news saying, ‘We are ecstatic and gratified that the government finally did the right thing and allowed Malalai Joya into the country so that Americans could hear what she has to say about the reality of the war, and particularly how Afghan women are faring under the occupation.’
The fourteenth chapter of Joya’s book, A Woman Among Warlords, is titled “The Long Road Ahead,” where she offers her alternative vision for Afghanistan. The basis for Malalai Joya’s optimism is captured by her beliefs in the basic goodness of the majority of the Afghan people. Here is how she expresses this optimism.
“…I believe that, given the opportunity, the Afghan people are capable of charting a course toward peace and independence.” (211)
“You can kill me, but you can never kill my spirit.
“As I often say, there are many others to follow me. Afghans are more than just a handful of warlords, Taliban, drug lords, and lackeys. I have a country full of people who know what I know and believe what I believe: "That we Afghans can govern ourselves without foreign interference. That democracy is possible here but can never be imposed at gunpoint. That the blood of millions of freedom-loving martyrs runs through our veins, and their memories live on in every corner of our country. That Afghan women have been at the forefront of our struggle throughout our proud history” (228-229). “Our enemies can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring” (229).
>Is it all just wishful-thinking?
It is not when you read about the uplifting experiences and achievements described in Greg Mortenson’s books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools. It is not when we learn about the challenges to or overthrow of dictators in North Africa and the Middle East. It is not when you become informed about the election of democratic governments in South America, despite generations of US domination. There may be possibilities for peace and justice that we have not dreamed of….
Malalai Joya is what such dreams, and their actualized expressions, are made of. As she titles the concluding chapter of her book, “A River is Made Drop by Drop.”
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Disputing Patraeus
Disputing Patraeus on Progress in theAfghanistan War
General David Patraeus testified before the Senate Arms Services Committee on March 15, providing an annual assessment of the war/occupation in Afghanistan. He is the top gun in Afghanistan as Commander of International Security Assistance Force and Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan. His assessment was cautiously positive about “US-NATO-ISAF” achievements in the past year, and upbeat in his expectations that Afghan forces will be able to take the “the lead” on security efforts by the end of 2014.
Here is how he begins his statement to the committee.
“At a bottom line up front, it is ISAF’s assessment that the momentum achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas. However, while the security progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is also fragile and reversible. Moreover, it is clear that much difficult work lies ahead with our Afghan partners to solidify and expand our gains in the face of the expected Taliban spring offensive. Nonetheless, the hard-fought achievements in 2010 and early 2011 have enabled the Joint Afghan-NATO Transition Board to recommend initiation this spring of transition to Afghan lead in several provinces. The achievements of the past year are also very important as I prepare to provide options and a recommendation to President Obama for commencement of the drawdown of the US surge forces in July. Of note, as well, the progress achieved has put us on the right azimuth [direction, path] to accomplish the objective agreed upon at last November's Lisbon Summit, that of Afghan forces in the lead throughout the country by the end of 2014.”
Gen. Patraeus reports that the additional troops he has received over the past year, from the beginning of 2010 to early 2011, has made a decided difference. As a result of increased “inputs” from the US and “47 other troop-contributing countries,” 68% coming from the US, the ISAF has been able “to conduct a comprehensive, civil-military counterinsurgency campaign, on staffing those organizations properly, on developing - in close coordination with our Afghan partners - the requisite concepts and plans, and, above all, on deploying the additional forces, civilians, and funding needed.” Continuing: he says: “Indeed, more than 87,000 additional ISAF troopers and 1,000 additional civilians have been added to the effort in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2009. And Afghanistan's Security Forces have grown by over 122,000 in that time, as well.”
The overall troop totals add up roughly to 262,000 troops, including 100,000 US troops, 40,000 troops from 47 other countries, and 122,000 Afghan troops. In addition, there are 6,000-8,000 civilians providing “services in logistics, intelligence, stabilization, and reconstruction.” (http://cnas.org/node/5399.), over 112,000 DOD contractors (http://fas.org.sgp/natsec/R40764.pdf), and more Afghan troops in the pipeline.
With all of these inputs, the “core objective” of the war/occupation remains [pathetically]“to ensure that Al-Qaeda is not able to reestablish a sanctuary in Afghanistan.” Al Qaeda! Patraeus implies misleadingly, that there are two options. Win or lose. If US and other foreign troops withdraw from the country prematurely and before the Afghanistan army is able (if ever) to protect the country by itself, then the Taliban (assumed to be a unified force) will take over the country and provide Al-Qaeda with a safe haven for its international terrorist efforts. With Taliban in control of the country and the Al-Qaeda ensconced therein, the “war on terrorism” will suffer a grave setback and US national security will be compromised. From Patraeus’ perspective, these perceived consequences of withdrawal are clearly sufficient to carry on the war/occupation for however long it takes to “win.”
In his assessment to the Senate Arms Services Committee, General Patraeus goes on to make other points. For example, he reports that the ISAF, Afghan, and other “international partners” have more efficiently captured or killed “insurgent leaders,” in recent months, the Taliban have been cleared from critical areas, the number of “weapons and explosive caches turned in” have increased, more troops have been positioned “to interdict the flow of fighters and explosives from insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan.” He also points out that the Afghan Local Police Initiative has been improved and represents movement toward a time when local communities will be able to defend themselves against “insurgents.”
In the meantime, he says, “I have put a conventional US infantry battalion under the operational control of our Special Operations Command in Afghanistan to increase our ability to support the program's expansion.” The US and international forces have gone to improvements in “governance, economic development, and the provision of basic services.”
In a word, General Patraeus’s testimony comes across as expected, with encouraging statements of progress and the promise of continuing successes in the future. But for all of this, of course, there are reasons to reject his cheerleading assessment. Here I’ll allude to a few of the reasons:
(1) the majority of Americans polled do not buy the idea that we should remain in Afghanistan to “get the job done” according to Patraeus and the other generals and hawkish senators and representatives in the Congress.
(2) The opposition in congress is going up. Though still a minority, it is a growing minority.
(3) Gen Patraeus does not say anything in his testimony about the costs to Afghan society and its people from the 10-year old war. There are great costs, the result of the US/NATO/Etc war and occupation or facilitated by them.
(4) The financial costs of the war for the US are great and the money could be alternatively well spent to address domestic economic problems.
(5) The many arguments in opposition to the war are and remain valid.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threatmatrix/archives/2011/03/full_text_of_general_petraeus.php
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#1 - Contrary to Gen. Patraeus rosy assessment, most Americans don’t buy it and want a speedy withdrawal of US troops from the war
Reporting for The Washington Post, Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen, write on a “new Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds “nearly two-thirds of Americans [who] say [the] Afghan war isn’t worth fighting.” Additionally, almost “three-quarters of Americans say Obama should withdraw a ‘substantial number’ of combat troops from Afghanistan this summer….” Further, “[t]he number of respondents to the Post-ABC News poll who say the war is not worth fighting has risen from 44 percent in late 2009 to 64 percent in the survey conducted last week.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/poll-nearly-two-thirds-of-Americans-say-afghan-war-isn
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#2 - The number of Representatives in the US Congress in favor of a quick withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has gone up
Here is the full text of a blog entry on March 18, 2011, by Rebecca Griffin, who is a member of Peace Action West.
Yesterday, the House voted on Reps. Kucinich and Jones’ resolution that would have directed the president to remove all US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days, and if that was deemed unsafe, by the end of 2011.
“The bill gave war opponents in the House another opportunity to draw attention to the failing strategy and to highlight growing public opposition to the war. Rep. Farr (D-CA) summed it up effectively when he took to the floor in support of the resolution:
“’As many of my colleagues demand $100 billion spending cuts, they need look no further than our reckless war spending. For the good of our troops and the health of our economy, this war must end.
“’And this viewpoint is shared across the nation. According to a recent Washington Post poll, nearly two-thirds of the American people support an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, our job in this chamber is to represent our constituents, and they have spoken loud and clear. The American people are fed up with a war that has done little to improve our national security or bolster our international standing. Furthermore, after nearly ten years of fighting, it is crystal clear that the problem in Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means alone.
"Stabilization and reconstruction, governance, and peace-building activities can help to stabilize states, promote rule of law, and bring enduring peace at a sliver of the cost we pay for troops on the ground.’
“In the end, 93 representatives voted in favor of the bill. While we would have preferred a majority, it’s important to keep in mind that at this time last year, only 65 representatives voted in favor of a nearly identical bill. That’s significant growth, especially when many members of
“Congress are hesitant to ‘tie the president’s hands’ with specific dates, especially ones that specifically contradict his stated plan. More and more members of Congress are willing to draw a line and say it’s time to get out. See how your representative voted here.
“Some Senate Republicans criticized what they called ‘mixed messages’ about whether the US is staying or going in Afghanistan when General Petraeus testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. They’re right, though I’m sure we want the administration to affirm the opposite messages. When we continue to get members of Congress on the record with votes like this, we are saying that the one message is clear: it’s time for this war to end.”
http://blog.peaceactionwest.org/2011/03/18/vote-count-grows-for-quick-withdrawal-from-afghanistan
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#3 – Patraeus unsurprisingly says nothing about the costs to Afghan society and its people.
There were many articles that appeared during the weeks before and after Patraeus testimony that reminded us of the great costs and harms of the war and occupation for the Afghan civilian population and society. On our blog stopafghanwar, we have paid a great deal of attention to the devastation and death wrought by this horrendous situation. Here are sections from two articles that complement and amplify our concerns.
First, Patrick Kelly provides the following summary in his article “Pursuing Peace in Afghan,” for Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Here are two paragraphs from Kelly’s piece.
“Environmental degradation, poverty, and inadequate health care delivery are some of the serious challenges facing this country. Electrical outages are common and clean water does not appear to be in Afghanistan’s immediate future. It is also apparent that the Kabul’s infrastructure has not benefitted in a meaningful way from the billions of dollars that have flowed into Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion. The sewage and sanitation system is exposed and as the busses, cars, truck, and donkey carts maneuver the paved and unpaved roads around the city they create clouds of deadly air. The streets and neighborhoods are a collection of brick and mud homes, bombed out buildings, and piles of rubble that have survived the thirty years of war but do not provide adequate shelter for their residents. Garbage piles, excrement, and animals abound creating a smelly and unsanitary environment. It is these conditions that explain why Afghanistan has the highest rate of fecal matter in the air of any place in the world. These poor living conditions result in nearly 3,000 people dying a year from diseases and medical conditions related to the pollution (wagingnonviolence.com) and a life expectancy of forty five years. Afghanistan is also the third poorest nation in the world. The country is overflowing with orphans, widows, unemployed, and underemployed. The United Nations reports that 36 % of Afghans live on less than a dollar a day. Compounding the problem is that since the US invasion Kabul’s population has grown by over 600 percent. Outside of Kabul, the situation is not much better. Nearly 850 children die from respiratory, gastrointestinal diseases, and malnourishment per day (Save the Children, 2010). These are just some of the challenges facing the nation as people continue to deal with thirty years of war that have gripped Afghanistan.
“Violence is the other major challenge facing the country. The Red Cross says the security situation in the country is deteriorating and life is untenable (International Red Cross, March 15, 2011) The threat of violence is never far from people’s minds and the reality that violence could break out at any time is a constant challenge for Afghans. Since December 2010, levels of violence have increased across the country and Kabul has been rocked by three suicide bombings. While the ISAF is hidden behind 12 foot blast walls rung with barbed wire and sentry post, the day to day security operations are left to Afghans. On nearly every block there are people with automatic weapons patrolling the streets, acting as security for private institutions, and staffing the official and unofficial checkpoints that dot the city. The situation is further complicated by the blast walls and the barb wire which make the city look like an armed camp.
The resulting siege mentality and threat of violence creates futility and shows that the current strategy in Afghanistan is not working.”
http://vcnv.org/pursuing-peace-in-afghanistan
Second, Kathy Kelly offers in her article “Incalculable – the human cost of NATO’s war on Afghanistan, printed by Pulse Media, March 9, 2011, heart-rending examples of a few of the many thousands of Afghan children killed, maimed, or driven into child labor out of desperation in this war. Here is some of what Kelly writes, from her personal witness in Afghanistan as well as from media reports.
“U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, shooting them ‘one after another’ this past Tuesday March 1st. (‘The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.’ (NYT 3/2/11)).
“Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. ‘The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,’ said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. ‘I myself was involved in the burial,’ Noori said. ‘Yesterday we buried them.’ (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.
“He has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. ‘In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed,’ the police commander said. ‘Another child was injured.’
“In the Bamiyan province of Afghanistan, Zekirullah, a young Afghan friend of mine, age 15, rises at 2:00 a.m. several mornings each week and rides his donkey for six hours through the pre-dawn to reach a mountainside where he can collect scrub brush and twigs which he loads on the donkey in baskets. Then he heads home and stacks the wood – on top of his family’s home – to be taken down later and burned for heat. They don’t have electrical appliances to heat the home, and even if they did the villagers only get electricity for two hours a day, generally between 1:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m. Families rely on their children to collect fuel for heat during the harsh winters and for cooking year round. Young laborers, wanting to help their families survive, mean no harm to the United States. They’re not surging at us, or anywhere: they’re not insurgents.
"They’re not doing anything to threaten us. They are children, and children anywhere are like children everywhere: they’re children like our own.
“Sadly, more and more of us in America are getting used to the idea of child poverty – and even child labor – as our own economy sinks further under the burden of our latest nine years of war, of two billion dollars per week we spend creating poverty abroad that we can then emulate at home. Things are getting bad here, but in Afghanistan, children are bombed. Their bodies are casually dismembered and strewn by machines already lost in the horizon as the limbs settle. They lie in pools of blood until family members realize, one by one, that their children are not late in returning home but in fact never will.”
http://nwoobserver.com/2011/03/09/incalculable-the-human-cost-of-nato%E2%80%99s-war-on-afghanistan
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#4 -The enormous financial costs of the war for the US are great and the money could be better spent to address domestic economic problems.
In an article written for Sojourner’s online magazine, Jim Wallis discusses some of the costs of the Afghanistan war here in the US. Here is most of his article.
[….]
“What weighs on my mind is the growing cost of war and that so few are actually seeing the bill, both human and financial. In the two wars, there have been nearly 6,000 U.S. deaths and 40,000 wounded. Tens of thousands of others suffer from post-traumatic stress and other psychological disorders, and a growing number of veterans are committing suicide. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have died, which is hardly ever a focus of American consciousness.
“There has also been a huge financial cost. The war in Afghanistan now costs more than $100 billion per year, and the cost of caring for veterans is steadily rising. From 2001 to the present, the two wars have cost approximately $1.3 trillion. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes estimate that the total cost could go as high as $4 trillion to $6 trillion, including continuing care for veterans and the opportunity cost of inadequate funding for domestic investments.
“With unemployment and poverty rates at near-record highs, this misuse of our precious resources is staggering. President Dwight Eisenhower once reminded us, ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.’
“The military budget in FY 2010 was nearly $700 billion, with an additional $37 billion for Afghanistan. If we include the defense and homeland security expenses outside the Defense Department, the total exceeds $1 trillion. By contrast, all other discretionary domestic programs totaled approximately $400 billion. It is exactly the situation Martin Luther King warned of when he said, ‘A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.’
“How do we break this military addiction? People respond to incentives. If they know they are going to be footing the bill for something, they are more likely to count the cost. If we were paying extra taxes to fund the war and every family knew they might have to pay the human cost, we would be more careful about what we committed ourselves to.
“We are paying billions of dollars for weapon systems the military hasn't even asked for and doesn't need. Weapons manufacturing brings jobs to congressional districts, which keeps politicians in office. Those workers, and the politicians they elect, will do everything they can to preserve defense contracts -- whether or not they're beneficial to our security or our fiscal health.
“Many of those in the weapons industry are good people, working hard to support their families. I doubt they often think about what they are making or what it will be used for. We rarely hear Eisenhower's term "military-industrial complex" any more. But we have a system in which too many people rely on war and the tools of war for their livelihood. Good people in a bad system can have a lot of bad results.
“Part of our moral recovery must be to challenge the influence of this powerful engine. With the growing national concern over the deficit, and the desperate need for investment in our future, the amount of money spent on war is no longer tenable.
“There are many reasons to end the war in Afghanistan, as the articles in this issue explain. But the unaffordable cost is another compelling reason that we cannot ignore. Even some of the newly elected "tea party" members of Congress are raising this concern. The desire to restore fiscal sanity and to stop mortgaging our children’s future stretches across the political spectrum.
“It is time for the war in Afghanistan to end. Our financial and spiritual health depends on it.”
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj1103&article=the-cost-of-war
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#5 – Many arguments against the war.
You can find a list and discussions of a host of the arguments that have been made against the war in Afghanistan, all of which are relevant for the ongoing debate over when, if ever, to withdraw US troops from the country. Here is the list. You can find the discussions at Wikipedia,
“Opposition to the War in Afghanistan (2001-present). (See URL at the end of the list.)
1 Disputed legality of the U.S. invasion
2 Involvement in an Afghan civil war
3 Afghan civilian opposition to the invasion
4 Afghan civilian casualties
5 Coalition military casualties
6 International public opinion
7 International protests against the war
8 Foreign military occupation
9 Foreign military raids of Afghan homes
10 Destruction of Afghan homes and crops
11 Rejection of the terrorism argument
11.1 Creating and training insurgents
11.1.1 Insurgent detention and recruitment facilities
11.1.2 Incubating and disseminating bomb-making expertise
12 Geo-political and corporate interests
12.1 U.S. energy interests
12.1.1 Pipeline path 'clearing and holding' forces
12.2 War in Afghanistan as a demonstration of U.S. military power
13 Thriving opium production since the invasion
14 Financial cost of the war to taxpayers and Western economies
15 Length of the war
15.1 Comparison to the length of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
15.2 Decades of war imposed on Afghans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E280%93present)#Financial_cost_of_war_to_taxpayer_and_Western_economies
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In short, most Americans who think about the war are opposed to it. And General David Patraeus testimony before the Senate committee is hardly going to change minds, but it does provide a cover for the majority of Senators and Representatives who will go along with his recommendations and appeals for full funding of the war.
The evidence contradicting Patraeus’ sanitized commentary is belied by a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, what the majority of citizens think, and even minimal democracy, does not seem to matter. Democratic President Obama and Republican President Bush seem to present variations on the same tune coming from the military brass and weapons’ makers – stay the course. It’s the same old duopoly and same old military-industrial complex.
What is encouraging is that the opposition to the Afghanistan war still has many supporters and voices.
General David Patraeus testified before the Senate Arms Services Committee on March 15, providing an annual assessment of the war/occupation in Afghanistan. He is the top gun in Afghanistan as Commander of International Security Assistance Force and Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan. His assessment was cautiously positive about “US-NATO-ISAF” achievements in the past year, and upbeat in his expectations that Afghan forces will be able to take the “the lead” on security efforts by the end of 2014.
Here is how he begins his statement to the committee.
“At a bottom line up front, it is ISAF’s assessment that the momentum achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas. However, while the security progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is also fragile and reversible. Moreover, it is clear that much difficult work lies ahead with our Afghan partners to solidify and expand our gains in the face of the expected Taliban spring offensive. Nonetheless, the hard-fought achievements in 2010 and early 2011 have enabled the Joint Afghan-NATO Transition Board to recommend initiation this spring of transition to Afghan lead in several provinces. The achievements of the past year are also very important as I prepare to provide options and a recommendation to President Obama for commencement of the drawdown of the US surge forces in July. Of note, as well, the progress achieved has put us on the right azimuth [direction, path] to accomplish the objective agreed upon at last November's Lisbon Summit, that of Afghan forces in the lead throughout the country by the end of 2014.”
Gen. Patraeus reports that the additional troops he has received over the past year, from the beginning of 2010 to early 2011, has made a decided difference. As a result of increased “inputs” from the US and “47 other troop-contributing countries,” 68% coming from the US, the ISAF has been able “to conduct a comprehensive, civil-military counterinsurgency campaign, on staffing those organizations properly, on developing - in close coordination with our Afghan partners - the requisite concepts and plans, and, above all, on deploying the additional forces, civilians, and funding needed.” Continuing: he says: “Indeed, more than 87,000 additional ISAF troopers and 1,000 additional civilians have been added to the effort in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2009. And Afghanistan's Security Forces have grown by over 122,000 in that time, as well.”
The overall troop totals add up roughly to 262,000 troops, including 100,000 US troops, 40,000 troops from 47 other countries, and 122,000 Afghan troops. In addition, there are 6,000-8,000 civilians providing “services in logistics, intelligence, stabilization, and reconstruction.” (http://cnas.org/node/5399.), over 112,000 DOD contractors (http://fas.org.sgp/natsec/R40764.pdf), and more Afghan troops in the pipeline.
With all of these inputs, the “core objective” of the war/occupation remains [pathetically]“to ensure that Al-Qaeda is not able to reestablish a sanctuary in Afghanistan.” Al Qaeda! Patraeus implies misleadingly, that there are two options. Win or lose. If US and other foreign troops withdraw from the country prematurely and before the Afghanistan army is able (if ever) to protect the country by itself, then the Taliban (assumed to be a unified force) will take over the country and provide Al-Qaeda with a safe haven for its international terrorist efforts. With Taliban in control of the country and the Al-Qaeda ensconced therein, the “war on terrorism” will suffer a grave setback and US national security will be compromised. From Patraeus’ perspective, these perceived consequences of withdrawal are clearly sufficient to carry on the war/occupation for however long it takes to “win.”
In his assessment to the Senate Arms Services Committee, General Patraeus goes on to make other points. For example, he reports that the ISAF, Afghan, and other “international partners” have more efficiently captured or killed “insurgent leaders,” in recent months, the Taliban have been cleared from critical areas, the number of “weapons and explosive caches turned in” have increased, more troops have been positioned “to interdict the flow of fighters and explosives from insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan.” He also points out that the Afghan Local Police Initiative has been improved and represents movement toward a time when local communities will be able to defend themselves against “insurgents.”
In the meantime, he says, “I have put a conventional US infantry battalion under the operational control of our Special Operations Command in Afghanistan to increase our ability to support the program's expansion.” The US and international forces have gone to improvements in “governance, economic development, and the provision of basic services.”
In a word, General Patraeus’s testimony comes across as expected, with encouraging statements of progress and the promise of continuing successes in the future. But for all of this, of course, there are reasons to reject his cheerleading assessment. Here I’ll allude to a few of the reasons:
(1) the majority of Americans polled do not buy the idea that we should remain in Afghanistan to “get the job done” according to Patraeus and the other generals and hawkish senators and representatives in the Congress.
(2) The opposition in congress is going up. Though still a minority, it is a growing minority.
(3) Gen Patraeus does not say anything in his testimony about the costs to Afghan society and its people from the 10-year old war. There are great costs, the result of the US/NATO/Etc war and occupation or facilitated by them.
(4) The financial costs of the war for the US are great and the money could be alternatively well spent to address domestic economic problems.
(5) The many arguments in opposition to the war are and remain valid.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threatmatrix/archives/2011/03/full_text_of_general_petraeus.php
……………
#1 - Contrary to Gen. Patraeus rosy assessment, most Americans don’t buy it and want a speedy withdrawal of US troops from the war
Reporting for The Washington Post, Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen, write on a “new Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds “nearly two-thirds of Americans [who] say [the] Afghan war isn’t worth fighting.” Additionally, almost “three-quarters of Americans say Obama should withdraw a ‘substantial number’ of combat troops from Afghanistan this summer….” Further, “[t]he number of respondents to the Post-ABC News poll who say the war is not worth fighting has risen from 44 percent in late 2009 to 64 percent in the survey conducted last week.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/poll-nearly-two-thirds-of-Americans-say-afghan-war-isn
……………
#2 - The number of Representatives in the US Congress in favor of a quick withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has gone up
Here is the full text of a blog entry on March 18, 2011, by Rebecca Griffin, who is a member of Peace Action West.
Yesterday, the House voted on Reps. Kucinich and Jones’ resolution that would have directed the president to remove all US troops from Afghanistan within 30 days, and if that was deemed unsafe, by the end of 2011.
“The bill gave war opponents in the House another opportunity to draw attention to the failing strategy and to highlight growing public opposition to the war. Rep. Farr (D-CA) summed it up effectively when he took to the floor in support of the resolution:
“’As many of my colleagues demand $100 billion spending cuts, they need look no further than our reckless war spending. For the good of our troops and the health of our economy, this war must end.
“’And this viewpoint is shared across the nation. According to a recent Washington Post poll, nearly two-thirds of the American people support an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, our job in this chamber is to represent our constituents, and they have spoken loud and clear. The American people are fed up with a war that has done little to improve our national security or bolster our international standing. Furthermore, after nearly ten years of fighting, it is crystal clear that the problem in Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means alone.
"Stabilization and reconstruction, governance, and peace-building activities can help to stabilize states, promote rule of law, and bring enduring peace at a sliver of the cost we pay for troops on the ground.’
“In the end, 93 representatives voted in favor of the bill. While we would have preferred a majority, it’s important to keep in mind that at this time last year, only 65 representatives voted in favor of a nearly identical bill. That’s significant growth, especially when many members of
“Congress are hesitant to ‘tie the president’s hands’ with specific dates, especially ones that specifically contradict his stated plan. More and more members of Congress are willing to draw a line and say it’s time to get out. See how your representative voted here.
“Some Senate Republicans criticized what they called ‘mixed messages’ about whether the US is staying or going in Afghanistan when General Petraeus testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. They’re right, though I’m sure we want the administration to affirm the opposite messages. When we continue to get members of Congress on the record with votes like this, we are saying that the one message is clear: it’s time for this war to end.”
http://blog.peaceactionwest.org/2011/03/18/vote-count-grows-for-quick-withdrawal-from-afghanistan
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#3 – Patraeus unsurprisingly says nothing about the costs to Afghan society and its people.
There were many articles that appeared during the weeks before and after Patraeus testimony that reminded us of the great costs and harms of the war and occupation for the Afghan civilian population and society. On our blog stopafghanwar, we have paid a great deal of attention to the devastation and death wrought by this horrendous situation. Here are sections from two articles that complement and amplify our concerns.
First, Patrick Kelly provides the following summary in his article “Pursuing Peace in Afghan,” for Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Here are two paragraphs from Kelly’s piece.
“Environmental degradation, poverty, and inadequate health care delivery are some of the serious challenges facing this country. Electrical outages are common and clean water does not appear to be in Afghanistan’s immediate future. It is also apparent that the Kabul’s infrastructure has not benefitted in a meaningful way from the billions of dollars that have flowed into Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion. The sewage and sanitation system is exposed and as the busses, cars, truck, and donkey carts maneuver the paved and unpaved roads around the city they create clouds of deadly air. The streets and neighborhoods are a collection of brick and mud homes, bombed out buildings, and piles of rubble that have survived the thirty years of war but do not provide adequate shelter for their residents. Garbage piles, excrement, and animals abound creating a smelly and unsanitary environment. It is these conditions that explain why Afghanistan has the highest rate of fecal matter in the air of any place in the world. These poor living conditions result in nearly 3,000 people dying a year from diseases and medical conditions related to the pollution (wagingnonviolence.com) and a life expectancy of forty five years. Afghanistan is also the third poorest nation in the world. The country is overflowing with orphans, widows, unemployed, and underemployed. The United Nations reports that 36 % of Afghans live on less than a dollar a day. Compounding the problem is that since the US invasion Kabul’s population has grown by over 600 percent. Outside of Kabul, the situation is not much better. Nearly 850 children die from respiratory, gastrointestinal diseases, and malnourishment per day (Save the Children, 2010). These are just some of the challenges facing the nation as people continue to deal with thirty years of war that have gripped Afghanistan.
“Violence is the other major challenge facing the country. The Red Cross says the security situation in the country is deteriorating and life is untenable (International Red Cross, March 15, 2011) The threat of violence is never far from people’s minds and the reality that violence could break out at any time is a constant challenge for Afghans. Since December 2010, levels of violence have increased across the country and Kabul has been rocked by three suicide bombings. While the ISAF is hidden behind 12 foot blast walls rung with barbed wire and sentry post, the day to day security operations are left to Afghans. On nearly every block there are people with automatic weapons patrolling the streets, acting as security for private institutions, and staffing the official and unofficial checkpoints that dot the city. The situation is further complicated by the blast walls and the barb wire which make the city look like an armed camp.
The resulting siege mentality and threat of violence creates futility and shows that the current strategy in Afghanistan is not working.”
http://vcnv.org/pursuing-peace-in-afghanistan
Second, Kathy Kelly offers in her article “Incalculable – the human cost of NATO’s war on Afghanistan, printed by Pulse Media, March 9, 2011, heart-rending examples of a few of the many thousands of Afghan children killed, maimed, or driven into child labor out of desperation in this war. Here is some of what Kelly writes, from her personal witness in Afghanistan as well as from media reports.
“U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, shooting them ‘one after another’ this past Tuesday March 1st. (‘The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting.’ (NYT 3/2/11)).
“Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. ‘The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district,’ said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. ‘I myself was involved in the burial,’ Noori said. ‘Yesterday we buried them.’ (AP, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.
“He has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. ‘In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed,’ the police commander said. ‘Another child was injured.’
“In the Bamiyan province of Afghanistan, Zekirullah, a young Afghan friend of mine, age 15, rises at 2:00 a.m. several mornings each week and rides his donkey for six hours through the pre-dawn to reach a mountainside where he can collect scrub brush and twigs which he loads on the donkey in baskets. Then he heads home and stacks the wood – on top of his family’s home – to be taken down later and burned for heat. They don’t have electrical appliances to heat the home, and even if they did the villagers only get electricity for two hours a day, generally between 1:00 a.m. – 3:00 a.m. Families rely on their children to collect fuel for heat during the harsh winters and for cooking year round. Young laborers, wanting to help their families survive, mean no harm to the United States. They’re not surging at us, or anywhere: they’re not insurgents.
"They’re not doing anything to threaten us. They are children, and children anywhere are like children everywhere: they’re children like our own.
“Sadly, more and more of us in America are getting used to the idea of child poverty – and even child labor – as our own economy sinks further under the burden of our latest nine years of war, of two billion dollars per week we spend creating poverty abroad that we can then emulate at home. Things are getting bad here, but in Afghanistan, children are bombed. Their bodies are casually dismembered and strewn by machines already lost in the horizon as the limbs settle. They lie in pools of blood until family members realize, one by one, that their children are not late in returning home but in fact never will.”
http://nwoobserver.com/2011/03/09/incalculable-the-human-cost-of-nato%E2%80%99s-war-on-afghanistan
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#4 -The enormous financial costs of the war for the US are great and the money could be better spent to address domestic economic problems.
In an article written for Sojourner’s online magazine, Jim Wallis discusses some of the costs of the Afghanistan war here in the US. Here is most of his article.
[….]
“What weighs on my mind is the growing cost of war and that so few are actually seeing the bill, both human and financial. In the two wars, there have been nearly 6,000 U.S. deaths and 40,000 wounded. Tens of thousands of others suffer from post-traumatic stress and other psychological disorders, and a growing number of veterans are committing suicide. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have died, which is hardly ever a focus of American consciousness.
“There has also been a huge financial cost. The war in Afghanistan now costs more than $100 billion per year, and the cost of caring for veterans is steadily rising. From 2001 to the present, the two wars have cost approximately $1.3 trillion. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes estimate that the total cost could go as high as $4 trillion to $6 trillion, including continuing care for veterans and the opportunity cost of inadequate funding for domestic investments.
“With unemployment and poverty rates at near-record highs, this misuse of our precious resources is staggering. President Dwight Eisenhower once reminded us, ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.’
“The military budget in FY 2010 was nearly $700 billion, with an additional $37 billion for Afghanistan. If we include the defense and homeland security expenses outside the Defense Department, the total exceeds $1 trillion. By contrast, all other discretionary domestic programs totaled approximately $400 billion. It is exactly the situation Martin Luther King warned of when he said, ‘A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.’
“How do we break this military addiction? People respond to incentives. If they know they are going to be footing the bill for something, they are more likely to count the cost. If we were paying extra taxes to fund the war and every family knew they might have to pay the human cost, we would be more careful about what we committed ourselves to.
“We are paying billions of dollars for weapon systems the military hasn't even asked for and doesn't need. Weapons manufacturing brings jobs to congressional districts, which keeps politicians in office. Those workers, and the politicians they elect, will do everything they can to preserve defense contracts -- whether or not they're beneficial to our security or our fiscal health.
“Many of those in the weapons industry are good people, working hard to support their families. I doubt they often think about what they are making or what it will be used for. We rarely hear Eisenhower's term "military-industrial complex" any more. But we have a system in which too many people rely on war and the tools of war for their livelihood. Good people in a bad system can have a lot of bad results.
“Part of our moral recovery must be to challenge the influence of this powerful engine. With the growing national concern over the deficit, and the desperate need for investment in our future, the amount of money spent on war is no longer tenable.
“There are many reasons to end the war in Afghanistan, as the articles in this issue explain. But the unaffordable cost is another compelling reason that we cannot ignore. Even some of the newly elected "tea party" members of Congress are raising this concern. The desire to restore fiscal sanity and to stop mortgaging our children’s future stretches across the political spectrum.
“It is time for the war in Afghanistan to end. Our financial and spiritual health depends on it.”
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj1103&article=the-cost-of-war
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#5 – Many arguments against the war.
You can find a list and discussions of a host of the arguments that have been made against the war in Afghanistan, all of which are relevant for the ongoing debate over when, if ever, to withdraw US troops from the country. Here is the list. You can find the discussions at Wikipedia,
“Opposition to the War in Afghanistan (2001-present). (See URL at the end of the list.)
1 Disputed legality of the U.S. invasion
2 Involvement in an Afghan civil war
3 Afghan civilian opposition to the invasion
4 Afghan civilian casualties
5 Coalition military casualties
6 International public opinion
7 International protests against the war
8 Foreign military occupation
9 Foreign military raids of Afghan homes
10 Destruction of Afghan homes and crops
11 Rejection of the terrorism argument
11.1 Creating and training insurgents
11.1.1 Insurgent detention and recruitment facilities
11.1.2 Incubating and disseminating bomb-making expertise
12 Geo-political and corporate interests
12.1 U.S. energy interests
12.1.1 Pipeline path 'clearing and holding' forces
12.2 War in Afghanistan as a demonstration of U.S. military power
13 Thriving opium production since the invasion
14 Financial cost of the war to taxpayers and Western economies
15 Length of the war
15.1 Comparison to the length of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
15.2 Decades of war imposed on Afghans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E280%93present)#Financial_cost_of_war_to_taxpayer_and_Western_economies
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In short, most Americans who think about the war are opposed to it. And General David Patraeus testimony before the Senate committee is hardly going to change minds, but it does provide a cover for the majority of Senators and Representatives who will go along with his recommendations and appeals for full funding of the war.
The evidence contradicting Patraeus’ sanitized commentary is belied by a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, what the majority of citizens think, and even minimal democracy, does not seem to matter. Democratic President Obama and Republican President Bush seem to present variations on the same tune coming from the military brass and weapons’ makers – stay the course. It’s the same old duopoly and same old military-industrial complex.
What is encouraging is that the opposition to the Afghanistan war still has many supporters and voices.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Both Iraq and Afghanistan wars fail
Afghanistan: a destructive and losing situation for Afghans, US troops, US taxpayers; generating instability and violence in Central Asia; creating problems not solving them….
This site, stopafghanwar, has sought to gather information that illuminates why it is justifiable to oppose the US government’s war/occupation on Afghanistan. We have logged 343 posts since the site was begun by George Hartley back in November, 2009. Posts have covered diverse topics, including: Afghan government corruption, the use by warlords and druglords of private armies and militias to control local populations in areas not under Taliban influence, US contractor abuses, civilian deaths, infrastructure destruction, refugees, US troop casualties and deaths, the costs in dollars to US taxpayers, the confusion and ineffectiveness in US military strategies, how the war/occupation fits into the US imperialist goal of maintaining control over oil in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions, the flawed Afghan elections, detention and torture of Afghani citizens, the use of cluster bombs and drones by the US air force, the lack of reconstruction, the brutality of the occupation, the need for negotiations with all parties, and so on.
We’ve been inspired by the brave voice of Malalai Joya through her book, Women Among Warlords, her extraordinary courage, and her articles and speeches. Joya writes in the “Introduction” to her book:
“We need security and a helping hand from friends around the world, but not this endless US-led ‘war on terror,’ which is in fact a war against the Afghan people. The Afghan people are not terrorists; we are the victims of terrorism Today the soil of Afghanistan is full of land mines, bullets, and bombs – when what we really need is an invasion of hospitals, clinics, and schools for boys and girls.” Then, a few sentences later: “We are caught between two enemies – the Taliban on one side and the US/NATO forces and their warlord friends on the other….During his election campaign, the new president of the United States, Barack Obama, spoke of sending tens of thousands more foreign troops to Afghanistan, but he did not speak out against the twin plagues of corruption and warlordism that are destroying my country. But for Afghans, Obama’s military build up will only bring more suffering and death to innocent civilians, while it may not even weaken the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”
We also need to be reminded that the Iraq war and occupation also do not represent “success” stories and should not be used as examples to justify the continuation of the war/occupation in Afghanistan
US actions in Iraq, from 1991 to the present left the country in ruins, insofar as the majority of the population is concerned. On the Dec. 22, 2010 post, I offered selected parts of a series of articles and reports that help to confirm the environmental destruction and the human misery among Iraqis caused or facilitated by the US-led war and occupation. My general point then and now is that the Iraq war is an illegal war, war crimes were committed, and the country has been devastated and its people subjected to great harm and death. (see
http://stopafghanwar.blogspot.com/2010/12/iraq-war-will-not-end-with-us-troop.html, or google “stopafghanwar, Iraq war will not end with withdrawal of US troops".)
"The US leaders said that we were invading Iraq to “liberate” it. Tom Engelhardt summarizes in the following paragraph from his book, The American Way of War (2010) the “devastation” that US forces brought to the country.
“Since then, Saddam Hussein’s killing fields have been dwarfed by a fierce set of destructive US military operations, as well as insurgencies cum-civil-wars-cum-terrorist-acts: major cities have been largely or partially destroyed, or ethnically cleansed; millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes, becoming internal refugees or going into exile; untold numbers of Iraqis have been imprisoned, assassinated, tortured, or abused; and the country’s cultural heritage has been ransacked. Basic services – electricity, water, food – were terribly impaired and the economy was simply wrecked. Health services were crippled. Oil production upon which Iraq now depends for up to 90 percent of its government funds, has only relatively recently barely surpassed the worst levels of the pre-invasion era” (155)
The majority of Republicans polled still think our war/occupation in Iraq is a “success.”
Polls done in December, 2010, by the Pew Research Center and by the Gallup Poll Third, found a bipartisan split among respondents, with Republican majorities viewing the war as the “right decision” and as a “success,” while a large majority of Democrats holding the opposite views. These findings are unsettling, particularly because of the Republican political gains in the 2010 US congressional and state elections and their right-wing and militaristic agendas.
Pew Research Center poll – http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
Gallup poll – http://www.politicsdailey.com/2010/08.21/iraq-war-seen-as-failure-by-53-percent-of-americans - e.g., 70% of the Democrats say it will go down as a failure, while 60% of Republicans think the war will be judged as a success.”
Some of the delusions of our foreign policy decision makers
One important implication of presenting Iraq as a “success” story is that it helps to rationalize US interventions and long wars and occupations in other places, including Afghanistan. The idea is that if we continue long enough in a given war, then it will turn out better than if we withdraw “prematurely.” Derek Leebaert explores this kind of thinking in his book, Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.” Leebaert identifies six delusions, two of which are especially pertinent to the present discussion:
“A sensation of urgency and of ‘crisis’ that accompanies the belief that most any resolute action is superior to restraint; it’s a demeanor that’s joined by the emergency man’s eagerness to be his country’s revealer of dangers, real and imagined.”
“The repeated belief that America can shape the destiny of other countries overnight and that the hearts and minds of distant people are throbbing to be transformed into something the way we see ourselves” (pp. 7-8).
Good War, Bad War - Nonsense!
Captured by such delusions perhaps, or by the imperatives of imperialistic constraints, US leaders, most illustriously President Obama, have defined the US-led Iraq war and occupation as a “bad” but successful war, and the Afghan war as a “good” war. Well, to repeat a point made many times on this site, we believe that the Afghan war is misbegotten and horrible, not a “good” war. Every war is unimaginably destructive, especially on the surroundings and people caught up in and trapped by this or that war. In this sense, the so-called successful Iraq war is another nightmarish example in these terms. If anything, the Iraq war should not serve as an example for continuing the Afghanistan war but as an example for ending it now.
A cop out - President Obama’s “Oval Office Speech on Iraq,” August 31, 2010
On August 31 of 2010, President Obama gave a speech in which, among things, he said that we had achieved our military goals in Iraq and thus:
(1) “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended [not true];
(2) “[we] have removed nearly 100,000 troops from Iraq….[and] closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis….[and] moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.”[but over 90 bases remain in US hands, including the biggest bases]….
(3) “all US troops will leave by the end of next year” [now its 2014 - maybe].
(4) He also said that there is an “elected government” in power” [fragile, with Sunni participation fragile and key decisions about the distribution of oil revenues still to be made] and
(5) the Iraqi people have rejected“sectarian conflict” [there still violent attacks, though down in number but trending upward]
There are two principal implications of President Obama’s speech. First, the speech emphasizes that the US occupation forces and allied for forces have achieved victory, or something like it, in Iraq. Second, the speech suggests that the US war/occupation can serve as a model for how to deal effectively with authoritarian governments, insurgents or “terrorists” in other parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, or anywhere else in “developing countries.” The strong thrust of the speech is that the US has the right to intervene anywhere it identifies a threat to the US or its allies in the developing world, launch attacks by the US military and special forces, and attempt to replace a government that is antagonistic to US interests or “a failed state” or strengthen a government that acts in US interests. This latter point suggests that US leaders prefer governments, even dictatorial governments, that will advance or protect US interests regardless of the effects of the people of a given country. This has been true of many US interventions in many “developing” countries for the last 150 years or so. (See a partial but detailed documentation of this point in William Blum’s Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.)
Bush-like
We think that President Obama’s declaration of a successful end of the US combat involvement in Iraq is disappointingly close to Bush’s misbegotten statement of “mission accomplished.” Today, Iraq represents seven years of turmoil and violence for millions of Iraqis, and counterproductive costs in life and resources for both Iraq and the United States. Obama says nothing in his speech about the devastation of Iraq’s physical and social infrastructures or the great harm we have done to Iraqi civilians – children as well. Rather, Obama’s statements bring to mind I.F. Stone’s belief that “all governments lie,” or the title of David Swanson’s recent book, War is a Lie.
The Compass of Compassion
I found these words in a book I've just finished reading by Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point. The book focuses on Safina's experiences during a year observing "nature," all sorts of birds, fish-life, and various habitats, while also discussing the mostly bad news about how humans are destroying the earth's habitats. On the last page of the book, Safina writes these inspiring and uplifting words:
"The compass of compassion asks not, 'What is good for me?' but 'What is good?' Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me, but what is right. Not "How much can we take? but "How much ought we leave?' and "How much might we give?' Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral. With each action we decide whether to sow the grapes of wrath or the seeds of peace.
"The compass of compassion suggests that very few things, each simple, are needed. We shouldn't hate people for the group they were born into, or because we hold conflicting beliefs about things that cannot be proven, seen, or measured. We can't infinitely take more from - or infinitely add more people to - a finite planet. While living in a world endowed with self-renewing energy, we can't run civilization on energy that diminishes the world. If we can get these simple things under control, I think we could be okay. Simple does not mean easy. Yet more than ever before in history, we can now understand what's needed. But nations need to act boldly and soon. Time runs short at an accelerating pace" (p 356).
This site, stopafghanwar, has sought to gather information that illuminates why it is justifiable to oppose the US government’s war/occupation on Afghanistan. We have logged 343 posts since the site was begun by George Hartley back in November, 2009. Posts have covered diverse topics, including: Afghan government corruption, the use by warlords and druglords of private armies and militias to control local populations in areas not under Taliban influence, US contractor abuses, civilian deaths, infrastructure destruction, refugees, US troop casualties and deaths, the costs in dollars to US taxpayers, the confusion and ineffectiveness in US military strategies, how the war/occupation fits into the US imperialist goal of maintaining control over oil in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions, the flawed Afghan elections, detention and torture of Afghani citizens, the use of cluster bombs and drones by the US air force, the lack of reconstruction, the brutality of the occupation, the need for negotiations with all parties, and so on.
We’ve been inspired by the brave voice of Malalai Joya through her book, Women Among Warlords, her extraordinary courage, and her articles and speeches. Joya writes in the “Introduction” to her book:
“We need security and a helping hand from friends around the world, but not this endless US-led ‘war on terror,’ which is in fact a war against the Afghan people. The Afghan people are not terrorists; we are the victims of terrorism Today the soil of Afghanistan is full of land mines, bullets, and bombs – when what we really need is an invasion of hospitals, clinics, and schools for boys and girls.” Then, a few sentences later: “We are caught between two enemies – the Taliban on one side and the US/NATO forces and their warlord friends on the other….During his election campaign, the new president of the United States, Barack Obama, spoke of sending tens of thousands more foreign troops to Afghanistan, but he did not speak out against the twin plagues of corruption and warlordism that are destroying my country. But for Afghans, Obama’s military build up will only bring more suffering and death to innocent civilians, while it may not even weaken the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”
We also need to be reminded that the Iraq war and occupation also do not represent “success” stories and should not be used as examples to justify the continuation of the war/occupation in Afghanistan
US actions in Iraq, from 1991 to the present left the country in ruins, insofar as the majority of the population is concerned. On the Dec. 22, 2010 post, I offered selected parts of a series of articles and reports that help to confirm the environmental destruction and the human misery among Iraqis caused or facilitated by the US-led war and occupation. My general point then and now is that the Iraq war is an illegal war, war crimes were committed, and the country has been devastated and its people subjected to great harm and death. (see
http://stopafghanwar.blogspot.com/2010/12/iraq-war-will-not-end-with-us-troop.html, or google “stopafghanwar, Iraq war will not end with withdrawal of US troops".)
"The US leaders said that we were invading Iraq to “liberate” it. Tom Engelhardt summarizes in the following paragraph from his book, The American Way of War (2010) the “devastation” that US forces brought to the country.
“Since then, Saddam Hussein’s killing fields have been dwarfed by a fierce set of destructive US military operations, as well as insurgencies cum-civil-wars-cum-terrorist-acts: major cities have been largely or partially destroyed, or ethnically cleansed; millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes, becoming internal refugees or going into exile; untold numbers of Iraqis have been imprisoned, assassinated, tortured, or abused; and the country’s cultural heritage has been ransacked. Basic services – electricity, water, food – were terribly impaired and the economy was simply wrecked. Health services were crippled. Oil production upon which Iraq now depends for up to 90 percent of its government funds, has only relatively recently barely surpassed the worst levels of the pre-invasion era” (155)
The majority of Republicans polled still think our war/occupation in Iraq is a “success.”
Polls done in December, 2010, by the Pew Research Center and by the Gallup Poll Third, found a bipartisan split among respondents, with Republican majorities viewing the war as the “right decision” and as a “success,” while a large majority of Democrats holding the opposite views. These findings are unsettling, particularly because of the Republican political gains in the 2010 US congressional and state elections and their right-wing and militaristic agendas.
Pew Research Center poll – http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
Gallup poll – http://www.politicsdailey.com/2010/08.21/iraq-war-seen-as-failure-by-53-percent-of-americans - e.g., 70% of the Democrats say it will go down as a failure, while 60% of Republicans think the war will be judged as a success.”
Some of the delusions of our foreign policy decision makers
One important implication of presenting Iraq as a “success” story is that it helps to rationalize US interventions and long wars and occupations in other places, including Afghanistan. The idea is that if we continue long enough in a given war, then it will turn out better than if we withdraw “prematurely.” Derek Leebaert explores this kind of thinking in his book, Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.” Leebaert identifies six delusions, two of which are especially pertinent to the present discussion:
“A sensation of urgency and of ‘crisis’ that accompanies the belief that most any resolute action is superior to restraint; it’s a demeanor that’s joined by the emergency man’s eagerness to be his country’s revealer of dangers, real and imagined.”
“The repeated belief that America can shape the destiny of other countries overnight and that the hearts and minds of distant people are throbbing to be transformed into something the way we see ourselves” (pp. 7-8).
Good War, Bad War - Nonsense!
Captured by such delusions perhaps, or by the imperatives of imperialistic constraints, US leaders, most illustriously President Obama, have defined the US-led Iraq war and occupation as a “bad” but successful war, and the Afghan war as a “good” war. Well, to repeat a point made many times on this site, we believe that the Afghan war is misbegotten and horrible, not a “good” war. Every war is unimaginably destructive, especially on the surroundings and people caught up in and trapped by this or that war. In this sense, the so-called successful Iraq war is another nightmarish example in these terms. If anything, the Iraq war should not serve as an example for continuing the Afghanistan war but as an example for ending it now.
A cop out - President Obama’s “Oval Office Speech on Iraq,” August 31, 2010
On August 31 of 2010, President Obama gave a speech in which, among things, he said that we had achieved our military goals in Iraq and thus:
(1) “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended [not true];
(2) “[we] have removed nearly 100,000 troops from Iraq….[and] closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis….[and] moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.”[but over 90 bases remain in US hands, including the biggest bases]….
(3) “all US troops will leave by the end of next year” [now its 2014 - maybe].
(4) He also said that there is an “elected government” in power” [fragile, with Sunni participation fragile and key decisions about the distribution of oil revenues still to be made] and
(5) the Iraqi people have rejected“sectarian conflict” [there still violent attacks, though down in number but trending upward]
There are two principal implications of President Obama’s speech. First, the speech emphasizes that the US occupation forces and allied for forces have achieved victory, or something like it, in Iraq. Second, the speech suggests that the US war/occupation can serve as a model for how to deal effectively with authoritarian governments, insurgents or “terrorists” in other parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, or anywhere else in “developing countries.” The strong thrust of the speech is that the US has the right to intervene anywhere it identifies a threat to the US or its allies in the developing world, launch attacks by the US military and special forces, and attempt to replace a government that is antagonistic to US interests or “a failed state” or strengthen a government that acts in US interests. This latter point suggests that US leaders prefer governments, even dictatorial governments, that will advance or protect US interests regardless of the effects of the people of a given country. This has been true of many US interventions in many “developing” countries for the last 150 years or so. (See a partial but detailed documentation of this point in William Blum’s Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.)
Bush-like
We think that President Obama’s declaration of a successful end of the US combat involvement in Iraq is disappointingly close to Bush’s misbegotten statement of “mission accomplished.” Today, Iraq represents seven years of turmoil and violence for millions of Iraqis, and counterproductive costs in life and resources for both Iraq and the United States. Obama says nothing in his speech about the devastation of Iraq’s physical and social infrastructures or the great harm we have done to Iraqi civilians – children as well. Rather, Obama’s statements bring to mind I.F. Stone’s belief that “all governments lie,” or the title of David Swanson’s recent book, War is a Lie.
The Compass of Compassion
I found these words in a book I've just finished reading by Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point. The book focuses on Safina's experiences during a year observing "nature," all sorts of birds, fish-life, and various habitats, while also discussing the mostly bad news about how humans are destroying the earth's habitats. On the last page of the book, Safina writes these inspiring and uplifting words:
"The compass of compassion asks not, 'What is good for me?' but 'What is good?' Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me, but what is right. Not "How much can we take? but "How much ought we leave?' and "How much might we give?' Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral. With each action we decide whether to sow the grapes of wrath or the seeds of peace.
"The compass of compassion suggests that very few things, each simple, are needed. We shouldn't hate people for the group they were born into, or because we hold conflicting beliefs about things that cannot be proven, seen, or measured. We can't infinitely take more from - or infinitely add more people to - a finite planet. While living in a world endowed with self-renewing energy, we can't run civilization on energy that diminishes the world. If we can get these simple things under control, I think we could be okay. Simple does not mean easy. Yet more than ever before in history, we can now understand what's needed. But nations need to act boldly and soon. Time runs short at an accelerating pace" (p 356).
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The US military remains more powerful than ever
Consider the larger context of US military spending. How large is the US military budget? Why is it so large? The answers to these questions help to throw some light on why the war in Afghanistan is likely to continue beyond 2014.
First, the size of the US military budget -
The overall gargantuan US military budget will most likely continue to rise in FY 2012. This will be so, even though “defense” spending is, and has been, the largest part of the discretionary federal budget (58% by some measures). And it will be so even though the US economy remains in an economic recession, creating insufficient employment opportunities, leaving millions of families in home foreclosure, amidst rising inequality and poverty and infrastructural, energy, and environmental problems that remain unattended.
Reporting for the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof notes the following: “The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html
The late Chalmers Johnson cited evidence to attest that the US is an empire of military bases. In his last book, Dismantling the Empire (2010), Johnson wrote:
“According to the Defense Department’s Base Structure Report for fiscal year 2009, the Pentagon owned or rented 716 overseas based and another 4,863 in the United States and its territories….Johnson goes on to point out that “the 2009 edition failed to mention any garrisons in the Iraq and Afghan war zones, as well as any bases or facilities used in countries such as Jordan and Qatar. As of the summer of 2009, “there were still nearly three hundred US bases and outposts in Iraq, with the number set to drop to fifty or fewer by August 31, 2010….”
Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope (2010.
At the same time, the number of military bases in Afghanistan has increased. Nick Turse reports that by Feb 2010, there were 400 US and Coalition bases across Afghanistan, with an additional 300 Afghan National Army and Afghan Police bases, “most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. (See Nick Turse, “Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan,” Alternet.org, Feb 10, 2010.)
http://www.alternet.org/world/145631/totally_occupied:_700_miitary_bases_spread_across_afghanistan?page=entire
Wikipedia provides the following information: “The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150[1] countries around the world, with more than 369,000 of its 1,580,255[2] active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories.” (See Wikipedia, “United States military deployments.”)
There is a continuing debate on whether the defense budget will be marginally cut with the withdrawal of many troops from Iraq, but such a cut, if it should happen, would not significantly reduce the preponderance of overall US military resources. (See Thom Shanker and Christopher Drew’s article, “Gates Sees Crisis in Current Spending, New York Times, Feb 15, 2011).
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/opinion/main6193925.shtml
But there is also evidence that the official estimates of the military budget that capture the media’s attention are lower than they actually are. Chris Hellman points this out:
“For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At $676 billion, that’s already nothing to sneeze at, but it’s just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security. Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.
“To get closer to a real figure, it’s necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away.
“Missing from the Pentagon’s budget request, for example, is an additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and producing them. That money, however, officially falls in the province of the Department of Energy. And then, don’t forget an additional $7.8 billion that the Pentagon lumps into a “miscellaneous” category—a kind of department of chump change—that is included in neither its base budget nor those war-fighting funds.”
Hellman then goes on to identify some of the missing pieces from the official and widely discussed Pentagon budget that brings the total from about $700 billion to over $1.2 trillion.
Here are just some of his examples of military-related expenditures in various non-defense categories of the budget: State Department ($8.7 billion); Homeland Security ($53.5 billion); US Intelligence ($59.1 billion); Veterans’ Programs ($129.3 billion); and Interest on the debt related to past government borrowing for military functions ($184 billion). There are other parts of the budget where military-related expenditures are unknown (that is, kept secret). On this, Hellman writes:
“To take one example, how much of NASA’s proposed $18.7 billion budget falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the Air Force’s facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of NASA technology and support? In dollar terms, we just don’t know.
“Other “known unknowns” would include portions of the State Department budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the interest on money borrowed to fund veterans’ benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even higher.”
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/03/01/the-real-us-national-security-budget
--------------------
Why is the US military budget so large?
The US leadership, in the both executive and legislative branches, appears determined to preserve the military power of the nation and keep it as a trump card to protect and advance the interests of US corporations, the chief actors in the country’s economy. As long as US dependence on foreign oil continues and increases, this will be the case. There are two other implications. Powerful forces within the US that reap benefits from large military spending want the status quo to continue. This is the military-industrial complex about which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the country in his last speech as president, on January 17, 1961. And US leaders seem persuaded that only the US has the military power to keep the world from falling into an intolerable and dangerous disorder.
Just consider one of these points, the forces within the US that serve to drive the military-industrial complex. Here are examples of these forces.
In the United States, there are many powerful groups, communities, and just ordinary citizens that support a militarized foreign policy. Why? Many parts of the US have benefited from the Iraq War financially, ideologically, and/or politically. Consider the following list of relevant items
(1) The military-industrial complex thrives on wars, however reckless, costly in resources and to people, and counterproductive they are.
(2) The President, along with too many elected officials in the U.S. Congress, advance a bipartisan, pro-war budget and agenda and have won money and votes for their campaigns..
(3) Covering up - “In 2005 and 2006 while Republicans held a majority in Congress, Democratic Congress members led by John Conyers (Mich.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) pushed hard for an investigation into the lies that had launched the aggression against Iraq. But from the time the Democrats took the majority in January 2007 up to the present moment, there has been no further mention of the matter, apart from a Senate committee’s release of its long-delayed report” (David Swanson, War Is a Lie, p. 303).
(4) The large veterans’ organizations typically defend the militarized foreign policy of the US government.
(5) Thousands of communities across the United States and in virtually all congressional districts support the government’s large military budgets, especially when they have military bases in their areas or local business with contracts to produce weapons or military-related supplies. The benefits are in employment, additional taxes, and spurs to the local economy.
(6) Burgeoning private firms/contractors prosper that provide services to the troops, security to embassies and officials, experienced former soldiers for special operations, and intelligence to the military.
(7) Millions of citizens who pride themselves on being patriotic have adopted the idea, perhaps out of fear, confusion, or the lack of information, that military force is the only way to protect America and its interests here and abroad. Here is a sad commentary on the US culture from David Swanson’s new book, War Is a Lie.
“We are more saturated with militarism than ever before. The military and its support industries eat up an increasingly larger share of the economy, providing jobs intentionally spread across all congressional districts. Military recruiters and recruitment advertising are ubiquitous. Sporting events on television welcome ‘members of the United States armed forces viewing in 177 nations around the world’ and nobody blinks. When wars begin, the government does whatever it has to do to persuade enough of the public to support the wars. Once the public turns against wars, the government just as effectively resists pressure to bring them to a swift end. Some years into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a majority of Americans told pollsters it had been a mistake to begin either of those wars. But easily manipulated majorities had supported those mistakes when they were made” (p. 10).
(8) The terror-complex. A widely held view in the United States is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were necessary to forestall and ultimately defeat international Islamic terrorism. These misbegotten goals generate fear and submissiveness in the population but also opportunities for the creation and expansion of yet more profitable and career-enhancing opportunities. Chris Hedges provides a glimpse of this in his article, “The Terror-Industrial Complex,” truthdig.com, February 8, 2010.
“It is difficult to get a fair trial in this country if the government wants to accuse you of terrorism,” said Foster. “It is difficult to get a fair trial on any types of charges. The government is allowed to tell the jury you are a terrorist before you have to put on any evidence. The fear factor that has emerged since 9/11 has permeated into the U.S. court system in a profoundly disturbing way. It embraces the idea that we can compromise core principles, for example the presumption of innocence, based on perceived threats that may or may not come to light. We, as a society, have chosen to cave on fear.”
“I spent more than a year covering al-Qaida for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. The threat posed by Islamic extremists, while real, is also wildly overblown, used to foster a climate of fear and political passivity, as well as pump billions of dollars into the hands of the military, private contractors, intelligence agencies and repressive client governments including that of Pakistan. The leader of one FBI counterterrorism squad told The New York Times that of the 5,500 terrorism-related leads its 21 agents had pursued over the past five years, just 5 percent were credible and not one had foiled an actual terrorist plot. These statistics strike me as emblematic of the entire war on terror.
“Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us.
(9) The media are too often an echo chamber of the official war narratives – Check out these two books, for example: Anthony Dimaggio, When Media Goes to War, and Norman Solomon’s War Made Easy
In his book War is a Lie, David Swanson comments on the role of the media: “The approach of the US corporate media to war coverage is to feature lots of ‘experts’ on war. By ‘experts’ they clearly mean high-ranking military officials, current or retired. But if the question is whether or not to go to war, or whether or not to continue war, or whether or not to escalate war, then why aren’t experts at peace making as relevant as experts at war making? In fact, why aren’t they more relevant, given our supposed preference for peace, its legality, and the ongoing pretense of civilian control over our military? The military can offer expertise on how to start and fight a way, but should it be considered to have any authority on whether to start a war?” (p. 252).
(10) Think tanks (some) provide rationales for war. Derek Leebaert provides the following examples in his book Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.
“Think tankers who double as advisers to the military – including Frederick Kagan and his spouse, Kimberly Kagan, who runs a new organization, ‘the Institute for the Study of War’ – wrote an op-ed…stating, ‘There is no doubt that we can succeed against the much weaker foes,’ comparing the Afghan insurgents dismissively to those in Iraq. Brookings expert Michael O’Hanlon and participated from the CSIS, Brookings, and the AEI to urge ‘significant escalation’ as they unanimously insisted ‘there is no alternative to victory’” (p. 243).
--------------------
What’s the point?
The US military establishment and its extensions have distorted our economy, politics, and cultural. A majority of Americans who have been recently polled indicate that they would like to see an end to the Afghanistan war. But this is not an issue that was high on the list of priorities indicated in other polls or why they voted as they did in 2010.
Perhaps the economic troubles of many Americans will in time be reflected in elections and in the White House and US Congress. However, the 2010 elections moved in the opposite direction, toward the right-wing of the Republican Party. This is a political reality so that now the Congress has become even more inclined toward a strong military. (It remains to be seen whether the Tea Party changes this reality.) One big part of the problem politically is that corporations and the rich are now legally able to pour more money into elections and lobbying than ever in memory.
In the meantime, the peace and anti-war groups remain relatively small. This is certainly true, when one compares the size of such groups before the Iraq War with what we have today. But even then the anti-war movement was unable to stop the US invasion of Iraq. Compare today with a letter I wrote back in February of 2003.
An Anti-War Movement With Many Voices
Bob Sheak
February 12, 2003
The peace/anti-war movement in the U.S. and across the world is large and diversified in the types of people and organizations involved and the religious and ideological views held by activists. Whatever differences there are, they are united by their opposition to a needless and costly war on Iraq and their support for the continuation of the inspections process.
An estimated 100,000 turned out for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last October, and at least twice as many showed up in January, with estimates ranging up to 500,000. Regardless of the exact number, the January rally was the largest anti-war demonstration in D.C. since the Vietnam era. At the same time, tens of thousands marched in San Francisco and towns of all sizes across the country and in some 37 other countries. On February 9th in Jakarta, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, up to a hundred thousand Indonesians staged a peaceful protest against a possible attack on Iraq. As of Friday, February 7th, 72 cities in the U.S. has passed resolutions or signed letters in opposition to an invasion of Iraq and 85 others (including Athens) had campaigns to do so.
The peace/anti-war movement includes traditional peace groups; student, global justice and antiracist activists; mainstream labor, environmental, civil rights and women's organizations. Over a hundred celebrities announced their opposition to the war on December 10 through the new Win Without War coalition. More than 750,000 people have joined online activist group MoveOn.org, which supports continued inspections and is airing television ads to that effect. Thirty-five hundred anti-war poems have been submitted to http://www.poetsagainstwar.org/. Z Magazine printed the e-mail addresses of 221 “peace” groups in its February issue. Even several prominent Republican businessmen took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal that told Bush: "The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed, but you must find a better way to do it."
Almost all of the major faiths have spoken out against war. The National Council of Churches, which represents 36 denominations and 140,000 local congregations, has taken a strong stand against an invasion of Iraq and has organized “A Season for Peacemaking.” And on February 9th, Pope John Paul II, the head of the Catholic Church with hundreds of millions of members in the U.S. and across the globe, addressed pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square in Rome and prayed for "an act from on high" to prevent a war against Iraq. Writing from Rome for online World News, Richard Owen writes: “The ageing pontiff rebuffed attempts by the Bush Administration to persuade him that impending military action against Baghdad amounted to a Christian ‘just war’… [and] also gave his backing to the new Franco-German plan to resolve the Iraq crisis through beefed-up weapons inspections and the deployment of UN troops.”
One implication of this growing peace/anti-war movement is that there is a large and growing number of Americans, leaders from many institutional sectors here and abroad, and others around the world who have not been convinced by the enormous and relentless efforts of the Bush Administration to rally them to support a preemptive “war” against Iraq that will have catastrophic human consequences.
Last word: The challenge appears unceasing....
First, the size of the US military budget -
The overall gargantuan US military budget will most likely continue to rise in FY 2012. This will be so, even though “defense” spending is, and has been, the largest part of the discretionary federal budget (58% by some measures). And it will be so even though the US economy remains in an economic recession, creating insufficient employment opportunities, leaving millions of families in home foreclosure, amidst rising inequality and poverty and infrastructural, energy, and environmental problems that remain unattended.
Reporting for the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof notes the following: “The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html
The late Chalmers Johnson cited evidence to attest that the US is an empire of military bases. In his last book, Dismantling the Empire (2010), Johnson wrote:
“According to the Defense Department’s Base Structure Report for fiscal year 2009, the Pentagon owned or rented 716 overseas based and another 4,863 in the United States and its territories….Johnson goes on to point out that “the 2009 edition failed to mention any garrisons in the Iraq and Afghan war zones, as well as any bases or facilities used in countries such as Jordan and Qatar. As of the summer of 2009, “there were still nearly three hundred US bases and outposts in Iraq, with the number set to drop to fifty or fewer by August 31, 2010….”
Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope (2010.
At the same time, the number of military bases in Afghanistan has increased. Nick Turse reports that by Feb 2010, there were 400 US and Coalition bases across Afghanistan, with an additional 300 Afghan National Army and Afghan Police bases, “most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. (See Nick Turse, “Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan,” Alternet.org, Feb 10, 2010.)
http://www.alternet.org/world/145631/totally_occupied:_700_miitary_bases_spread_across_afghanistan?page=entire
Wikipedia provides the following information: “The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150[1] countries around the world, with more than 369,000 of its 1,580,255[2] active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories.” (See Wikipedia, “United States military deployments.”)
There is a continuing debate on whether the defense budget will be marginally cut with the withdrawal of many troops from Iraq, but such a cut, if it should happen, would not significantly reduce the preponderance of overall US military resources. (See Thom Shanker and Christopher Drew’s article, “Gates Sees Crisis in Current Spending, New York Times, Feb 15, 2011).
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/opinion/main6193925.shtml
But there is also evidence that the official estimates of the military budget that capture the media’s attention are lower than they actually are. Chris Hellman points this out:
“For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagon’s annual “base” budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At $676 billion, that’s already nothing to sneeze at, but it’s just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security. Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.
“To get closer to a real figure, it’s necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away.
“Missing from the Pentagon’s budget request, for example, is an additional $19.3 billion for nuclear-weapons-related activities like making sure our current stockpile of warheads will work as expected and cleaning up the waste created by seven decades of developing and producing them. That money, however, officially falls in the province of the Department of Energy. And then, don’t forget an additional $7.8 billion that the Pentagon lumps into a “miscellaneous” category—a kind of department of chump change—that is included in neither its base budget nor those war-fighting funds.”
Hellman then goes on to identify some of the missing pieces from the official and widely discussed Pentagon budget that brings the total from about $700 billion to over $1.2 trillion.
Here are just some of his examples of military-related expenditures in various non-defense categories of the budget: State Department ($8.7 billion); Homeland Security ($53.5 billion); US Intelligence ($59.1 billion); Veterans’ Programs ($129.3 billion); and Interest on the debt related to past government borrowing for military functions ($184 billion). There are other parts of the budget where military-related expenditures are unknown (that is, kept secret). On this, Hellman writes:
“To take one example, how much of NASA’s proposed $18.7 billion budget falls under national security spending? We know that the agency works closely with the Pentagon. NASA satellite launches often occur from the Air Force’s facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Air Force has its own satellite launch capability, but how much of that comes as a result of NASA technology and support? In dollar terms, we just don’t know.
“Other “known unknowns” would include portions of the State Department budget. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have no figure for the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. Nor do we have figures for the interest on money borrowed to fund veterans’ benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or even higher.”
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/03/01/the-real-us-national-security-budget
--------------------
Why is the US military budget so large?
The US leadership, in the both executive and legislative branches, appears determined to preserve the military power of the nation and keep it as a trump card to protect and advance the interests of US corporations, the chief actors in the country’s economy. As long as US dependence on foreign oil continues and increases, this will be the case. There are two other implications. Powerful forces within the US that reap benefits from large military spending want the status quo to continue. This is the military-industrial complex about which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the country in his last speech as president, on January 17, 1961. And US leaders seem persuaded that only the US has the military power to keep the world from falling into an intolerable and dangerous disorder.
Just consider one of these points, the forces within the US that serve to drive the military-industrial complex. Here are examples of these forces.
In the United States, there are many powerful groups, communities, and just ordinary citizens that support a militarized foreign policy. Why? Many parts of the US have benefited from the Iraq War financially, ideologically, and/or politically. Consider the following list of relevant items
(1) The military-industrial complex thrives on wars, however reckless, costly in resources and to people, and counterproductive they are.
(2) The President, along with too many elected officials in the U.S. Congress, advance a bipartisan, pro-war budget and agenda and have won money and votes for their campaigns..
(3) Covering up - “In 2005 and 2006 while Republicans held a majority in Congress, Democratic Congress members led by John Conyers (Mich.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) pushed hard for an investigation into the lies that had launched the aggression against Iraq. But from the time the Democrats took the majority in January 2007 up to the present moment, there has been no further mention of the matter, apart from a Senate committee’s release of its long-delayed report” (David Swanson, War Is a Lie, p. 303).
(4) The large veterans’ organizations typically defend the militarized foreign policy of the US government.
(5) Thousands of communities across the United States and in virtually all congressional districts support the government’s large military budgets, especially when they have military bases in their areas or local business with contracts to produce weapons or military-related supplies. The benefits are in employment, additional taxes, and spurs to the local economy.
(6) Burgeoning private firms/contractors prosper that provide services to the troops, security to embassies and officials, experienced former soldiers for special operations, and intelligence to the military.
(7) Millions of citizens who pride themselves on being patriotic have adopted the idea, perhaps out of fear, confusion, or the lack of information, that military force is the only way to protect America and its interests here and abroad. Here is a sad commentary on the US culture from David Swanson’s new book, War Is a Lie.
“We are more saturated with militarism than ever before. The military and its support industries eat up an increasingly larger share of the economy, providing jobs intentionally spread across all congressional districts. Military recruiters and recruitment advertising are ubiquitous. Sporting events on television welcome ‘members of the United States armed forces viewing in 177 nations around the world’ and nobody blinks. When wars begin, the government does whatever it has to do to persuade enough of the public to support the wars. Once the public turns against wars, the government just as effectively resists pressure to bring them to a swift end. Some years into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a majority of Americans told pollsters it had been a mistake to begin either of those wars. But easily manipulated majorities had supported those mistakes when they were made” (p. 10).
(8) The terror-complex. A widely held view in the United States is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were necessary to forestall and ultimately defeat international Islamic terrorism. These misbegotten goals generate fear and submissiveness in the population but also opportunities for the creation and expansion of yet more profitable and career-enhancing opportunities. Chris Hedges provides a glimpse of this in his article, “The Terror-Industrial Complex,” truthdig.com, February 8, 2010.
“It is difficult to get a fair trial in this country if the government wants to accuse you of terrorism,” said Foster. “It is difficult to get a fair trial on any types of charges. The government is allowed to tell the jury you are a terrorist before you have to put on any evidence. The fear factor that has emerged since 9/11 has permeated into the U.S. court system in a profoundly disturbing way. It embraces the idea that we can compromise core principles, for example the presumption of innocence, based on perceived threats that may or may not come to light. We, as a society, have chosen to cave on fear.”
“I spent more than a year covering al-Qaida for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. The threat posed by Islamic extremists, while real, is also wildly overblown, used to foster a climate of fear and political passivity, as well as pump billions of dollars into the hands of the military, private contractors, intelligence agencies and repressive client governments including that of Pakistan. The leader of one FBI counterterrorism squad told The New York Times that of the 5,500 terrorism-related leads its 21 agents had pursued over the past five years, just 5 percent were credible and not one had foiled an actual terrorist plot. These statistics strike me as emblematic of the entire war on terror.
“Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us.
(9) The media are too often an echo chamber of the official war narratives – Check out these two books, for example: Anthony Dimaggio, When Media Goes to War, and Norman Solomon’s War Made Easy
In his book War is a Lie, David Swanson comments on the role of the media: “The approach of the US corporate media to war coverage is to feature lots of ‘experts’ on war. By ‘experts’ they clearly mean high-ranking military officials, current or retired. But if the question is whether or not to go to war, or whether or not to continue war, or whether or not to escalate war, then why aren’t experts at peace making as relevant as experts at war making? In fact, why aren’t they more relevant, given our supposed preference for peace, its legality, and the ongoing pretense of civilian control over our military? The military can offer expertise on how to start and fight a way, but should it be considered to have any authority on whether to start a war?” (p. 252).
(10) Think tanks (some) provide rationales for war. Derek Leebaert provides the following examples in his book Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy.
“Think tankers who double as advisers to the military – including Frederick Kagan and his spouse, Kimberly Kagan, who runs a new organization, ‘the Institute for the Study of War’ – wrote an op-ed…stating, ‘There is no doubt that we can succeed against the much weaker foes,’ comparing the Afghan insurgents dismissively to those in Iraq. Brookings expert Michael O’Hanlon and participated from the CSIS, Brookings, and the AEI to urge ‘significant escalation’ as they unanimously insisted ‘there is no alternative to victory’” (p. 243).
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What’s the point?
The US military establishment and its extensions have distorted our economy, politics, and cultural. A majority of Americans who have been recently polled indicate that they would like to see an end to the Afghanistan war. But this is not an issue that was high on the list of priorities indicated in other polls or why they voted as they did in 2010.
Perhaps the economic troubles of many Americans will in time be reflected in elections and in the White House and US Congress. However, the 2010 elections moved in the opposite direction, toward the right-wing of the Republican Party. This is a political reality so that now the Congress has become even more inclined toward a strong military. (It remains to be seen whether the Tea Party changes this reality.) One big part of the problem politically is that corporations and the rich are now legally able to pour more money into elections and lobbying than ever in memory.
In the meantime, the peace and anti-war groups remain relatively small. This is certainly true, when one compares the size of such groups before the Iraq War with what we have today. But even then the anti-war movement was unable to stop the US invasion of Iraq. Compare today with a letter I wrote back in February of 2003.
An Anti-War Movement With Many Voices
Bob Sheak
February 12, 2003
The peace/anti-war movement in the U.S. and across the world is large and diversified in the types of people and organizations involved and the religious and ideological views held by activists. Whatever differences there are, they are united by their opposition to a needless and costly war on Iraq and their support for the continuation of the inspections process.
An estimated 100,000 turned out for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last October, and at least twice as many showed up in January, with estimates ranging up to 500,000. Regardless of the exact number, the January rally was the largest anti-war demonstration in D.C. since the Vietnam era. At the same time, tens of thousands marched in San Francisco and towns of all sizes across the country and in some 37 other countries. On February 9th in Jakarta, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, up to a hundred thousand Indonesians staged a peaceful protest against a possible attack on Iraq. As of Friday, February 7th, 72 cities in the U.S. has passed resolutions or signed letters in opposition to an invasion of Iraq and 85 others (including Athens) had campaigns to do so.
The peace/anti-war movement includes traditional peace groups; student, global justice and antiracist activists; mainstream labor, environmental, civil rights and women's organizations. Over a hundred celebrities announced their opposition to the war on December 10 through the new Win Without War coalition. More than 750,000 people have joined online activist group MoveOn.org, which supports continued inspections and is airing television ads to that effect. Thirty-five hundred anti-war poems have been submitted to http://www.poetsagainstwar.org/. Z Magazine printed the e-mail addresses of 221 “peace” groups in its February issue. Even several prominent Republican businessmen took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal that told Bush: "The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed, but you must find a better way to do it."
Almost all of the major faiths have spoken out against war. The National Council of Churches, which represents 36 denominations and 140,000 local congregations, has taken a strong stand against an invasion of Iraq and has organized “A Season for Peacemaking.” And on February 9th, Pope John Paul II, the head of the Catholic Church with hundreds of millions of members in the U.S. and across the globe, addressed pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square in Rome and prayed for "an act from on high" to prevent a war against Iraq. Writing from Rome for online World News, Richard Owen writes: “The ageing pontiff rebuffed attempts by the Bush Administration to persuade him that impending military action against Baghdad amounted to a Christian ‘just war’… [and] also gave his backing to the new Franco-German plan to resolve the Iraq crisis through beefed-up weapons inspections and the deployment of UN troops.”
One implication of this growing peace/anti-war movement is that there is a large and growing number of Americans, leaders from many institutional sectors here and abroad, and others around the world who have not been convinced by the enormous and relentless efforts of the Bush Administration to rally them to support a preemptive “war” against Iraq that will have catastrophic human consequences.
Last word: The challenge appears unceasing....
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