The more I think about this, the more outrageously– and tragically– improbable this appears.
Let’s review the reasons:
- 1. NATO is a military alliance. What its members have trained extensively to do and are equipped and organized to do is to fight a military enemy, including by the application of overwhelming firepower, and to win actual military wars. Afghanistan’s worsening crisis of governance is not a military problem.
2. NATO is the military club of the “North Atlantic”– that is, West and Central European and non-Hispanic North American– powers that comprise, roughly speaking, the dominant grouping within the construct of “the West”. Afghanistan is far distant from the North Atlantic, geographically, culturally, politically. Just look at the length of the supply lines! Just look at the length of the cultural misinterpration possibilities!
3. NATO’s Afghanistan mandate was only won from the UN as a result of a particular conjunction of circumstances in late 2001. As NATO’s failure to resolve Afghanistan’s escalating crisis of governance becomes ever more evident, the Security Council and whatever legitimacy-seeking portions of Afghanistan’s national government remain will have to look for a new instrument of de-escalation and peacebuilding in Afghanistan. NATO, meanwhile, might lie in ruins. (Remind me, anyway, what exactly is its rationale for still being existence 17 years after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact?)
This is my big-picture take on the current situation in Afghanistan, which is one of continuing tragedy for most of the country’s 32 million people. For example, on August 1, a network of NGOs in the country said that “Up to 1,000 civilians are among the 2,500 killed in armed conflict so far in 2008.” Also, “July was reportedly the worst month for Afghan civilians in the past six years, with 260 civilian casualties recorded.”
Those casualties counted there, remember, include only those that (a) were the direct result of the physical violence of armed clashes, and (b) were reported in ways that reached the national news media and/or the NGO networks. So they don’t include either those killed by direct physical violence that was not reported or, even more significantly, those who died because of the indirect results of the conflict that continues in the country, including people who:
- — died from causes that decent basic health care including access to hospitals could have prevented, but where that care and access were blocked by the continuing conflict;
— died from diseases, especially those related to unsafe drinking water, that could easily have been prevented in a time of public security and the provision of basic public health services that were blocked by the continuing conflict;
— died from complications of childbirth that a functioning public health system could have identified and treated;
— etc…
In short, the situation in which many or most Afghan people are living is fraught with uncertainty, fear, and the blighting of human capabilities. Western news reports tend to focus only on “western” casualties in the country.
For example, this recent AFP report led with the news that “Bomb blasts killed five NATO soldiers in Afghanistan on Friday…” But it relegated to the second graf the news that “Five Afghan policemen were also killed in an overnight bomb attack… ” And it left till the fourth paragraph the news that four of the killed NATO soldiers were– oh, by the way– also accompanied by a civilian interpreter who was also killed in the attack…
Why did they not write the lead thus: “Five NATO soldiers, five Afghan policemen, and a civilian interpreter were killed in bomb attacks Friday”? Or better still: “Six Afghans working with the security forces and five NATO soldiers were killed in bomb attacks Friday””? Anyone who is a NATO soldier has, after all, quite voluntarily taken the oath of military service under which he or she recognizes that s/he can indeed be killed in the line of duty (while s/he also has the right, under certain circumstances, to kill others while undertaking those same duties.)
Civilians have never taken such an oath. Their deaths in combat therefore have a far graver ethical weight.
Bigger point: The western media have not been giving anything like adequate coverage to the crisis of governance that’s been escalating in Afghanistan under NATO’s “rule” there, and to the extensive human suffering this has caused.
… Last week, the US Institute of Peace hosted a presentation by Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, an adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai who since 2005 has served as vice chair of Afghanistan’s Demobilization and Reintegration Commission. I was unable to attend that, but frequent JWN commenter Bob Spencer did get there. He filed this short report of the event.
He writes:
- After one and a half hours of listening to highly motivated and deep thinking specialists, it was clear that we, in the West, have only begun to scratch the surface of identifying the “challenges” and dynamics of Afghanistan’s complex politics. On top of that, I began to wonder if the western mind might not ever adapt to, let alone comprehend, Afghanistan’s complex ways…
Ah, but isn’t the model being applied that it’s Afghanistan’s people who should be expected to “adapt to”– and indeed, completely adopt– the ways of the west, which are, after all (in the view of many westerners) what this whole thing called the “international community” is all about?
By the way, Stanekzai published a pretty interesting report on the dysfunctions of the present western effort in Afghanistan, back in June.
And if you want to listen to the MP3 audio of his most recent presentation, you can do so here.
I would not have thought you need to be so hesitant, Helena. I would have thought it self-evident that NATO, or the US operations outside NATO, cannot “succeed” in Afghanistan. The objectives have slipped far too far from the original aim of eliminating al-Qa’ida. They have no idea where to stop. Destroying al-Qa’ida was justifiable, and that has been done. I would doubt that there are more than twenty or fifty al-Qa’ida left, either hiding out in the mountains, or living comfortably, protected, in Peshawar, sending out the occasional video – if indeed those videos really do emanate from al-Qa’ida.
Rather, the aims have slipped into destroying the Taliban. That is close to impossible. You only have to read Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, a snap-shot of Nuristan in 1958, precisely the area where recent events have taken place, to understand how deeply embedded the type of fundamentalist Sunnism typical of the Taliban is in the war area. Destruction of the Taliban is impossible without genocide. Of course, today, genocide is OK, if it’s carried out by the “good guys”, and spun in the media.
Destruction of the Taliban is also a poor aim. A people, the Pushtun, have a right to their beliefs. Attacking that people will only consolidate their beliefs.
All in all, the NATO/US action in Afghanistan has slid into a replica of the Soviet occupation. It is not a question of what might happen in the future, it has already happened. It is only a question of how long it will take NATO/US governments to appreciate the point. The situation has developed more slowly than in Iraq.
Of course, the situation might “develop” much more rapidly, were Russia or China, for their own political reasons (much as the US in the 1980s), to decide to supply the Taliban with modern weapons. The situation would not be the same as in the 1980s, as there are many different factors, such as greater US air dominance, but it could well be enough to bring the whole affair to a standstill, perhaps even without new weapons.
Stagnation is all NATO/US can hope for. Is it worth the effort?
What to do? First:
* Recognize that these are largely political tasks, and approach them politically, not with brute force. (p. 22, Re-Enage)
And then:
* Recommit, in deeds and words, to the American ideals of of human equality, fairness, respect and generosity.
* Invest the time needed to assess the effects of our policies on other people . . ., and stop or reverse hose policies that harm other peoples, even as we increase the help we give them.
* Brainstorm in a respectful way with people and leaders from [Afghanistan] . . .and remember that Americans do not have all the answers.
* Cut back our country’s reliance on military power. (p. 109, Re-Engage)
The most important of the above? R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the people of Afghanistan.
I don’t think it’s accurate to equate the Taliban with the beliefs of the entire Pushtun culture. And I wonder about Alex’s comment about the Taliban having a right to their beliefs: Couldn’t you use that logic to condemning the civil rights movement, because the South would have a right to their segregationist beliefs? Or how about now: A lot of Southerners are creationists and anti-abortionists. Should we then not oppose their efforts to outlaw abortion and put creationism in the schools?
I think increased troop numbers in Afghanistan are intended as a short term stop of Taliban advances. The increased troop numbers also addresses the issue of high civilian casualties, which results from blunt instrument bombings that result from lack of ground troops. But the troop numbers are not intended to be the sole solution. Ultimately a political solution like in page 22 of “ReEngage” has to take into effect, to reconcile with most Taliban elements and extract the Mullah Omar era leadership from the fight. A political solution will work with anti-Government fighters who owe no dedication to Omar or al-Qaeda.
I don’t think it’s accurate to equate the Taliban with the beliefs of the entire Pushtun culture.
Of course, you wouldn’t, Inkan, it’s not in your interest. I didn’t say it either. The phrase I used was ‘deeply embedded’.
I don’t believe I have ever seen an attempt to calculate what proportion of Pushtun population are Taliban. A poll might be difficult. But it’s an important issue. One basic statement one can make is that 100% of the Pushtun population are strong Sunni Muslims. The Taliban are of course the extreme end, no doubt a minority. Attack them, and of course the pool of active or passive supporters expands. Yes, I would say a majority now. The Taliban seem pretty free now to do what they want, as long as they can avoid NATO/US air power.
One shouldn’t be deceived by the spin of NATO/US military announcements.
Helena,
Afghanistan: Can NATO succeed?
Helena, very simple question here will be very important to ask:
What sort of victory you like in Afghanistan?
Let face it foreign military for years having war there what they really done, they installed US proxy guys with some warlords and trying hard to gain support for this US proxy government. Is this war can be winnable?
Taking in accounts that history of Afghanistan is grave of empires just like Iraq, there is no real wining case here as much as opposing the will and the desire of NATIVE people on their land.
If some thinks US have solid victory for the U.S. in Iraq the reality is the wining there not more that creation of Thieves Republic of Iraq.
A poll might be difficult.
http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1049a1Afghanistan-WhereThingsStand.pdf
Just 13 percent of Afghans express a favorable opinion of the Taliban, essentially the same as last year (and just 10 percent say it has a strong presence in their area, although more, 25 percent, say it has at least some presence). Afghans
prefer their current government to the Taliban by 84-4 percent. (It was 91-1 in 2005.)
Yes, I would say a majority now.
Of course you would. It’s in your interest!
Vadim,
Of course you would. It’s in your interest!
When polles and sarvy talking about nubers of killed in Iraq we saw denail for those polls and servays, but now Vadim came here to convince us with recent polles.
It be very instersting to see poll of Afghans what thier opions about the war with NATO and US troopes on thier land.
This very impornat than taking very marjnal polle about Taliban.
Let see how much the life improved let review the words that siad 6 yeras ago:
President George W. Bush, Remarks to the Warsaw Conference on Combating Terrorism, November 6, 2001
Sadriqa, a 22-year-old woman in Kabul
Nageeba, a 35-year-old widow in Kabul
King Mohammed VI of Morocco
An Afghan elder, interviewed by Sima Wali of Refugee Women in Development
Any one can tell us what progress were done on the ground there?
If the Taleban retake Afghanistan AlQaeda will regroup in that country. Their religious beliefs are virtually identical.
But President Obama will not let this happen – he’s promised the world so, in Berlin.
I’ve been reading “Tournament of Shadows” by Meyer and Brysac, which is a retelling of the Great Game in Central Asia. The Brits certainly had no luck in Afganistan. As a control mechanism, they drew an arbitrary border between Afganistan and India, which never made any sense to the inhabitants themselves Some credit the Soviet adventure in Afganistan as the start of the disintegration of their empire.
But never fear, al Quaeda keeps on morphing. Just heard a wild-eyed news reporter on CNN claiming that they’re now in cahoots with the Uighurs in China! How convenient for the Chinese.
I’ve been reading “Tournament of Shadows” by Meyer and Brysac, which is a retelling of the Great Game in Central Asia. The Brits certainly had no luck in Afganistan. As a control mechanism, they drew an arbitrary border between Afganistan and India, which never made any sense to the inhabitants themselves. More recently, some credit the Soviet adventure in Afganistan as the start of the disintegration of their empire.
But never fear, al Quaeda keeps on morphing. Just heard a wild-eyed news reporter on CNN claiming that they’re now in cahoots with the Uighurs in China! How convenient for the Chinese.
Their religious beliefs are virtually identical.
Yah, but what about the source/root of that deformed religious beliefs?
Still breading on Saudi land.
So what President Obama will do? We will see him hand in hand with Saudi king and Prices especially with oil money flow these days.
Or we see like this Al-Qaeda rebirth again when Saudi Arabia’s most internationally prominent prince threatened to end counter-insurgency cooperation with Britain unless it halted an investigation of BAE Systems, a leading supplier of the Arab kingdom.
kassandra,
Sinjan province in 1940 had secular local government not Islamic government although the majority of people there are Muslims.
What happen then Muslims are sparest harshly by china’s central government for decades and the people in Sinjan are more nationalists than Islamic driven battle with central chine’s government.
The Muslims in Sinjan are far different in their believe to Al-Qaeda Wahabi Saudi deformed self necessities crated believe where Sinjan Muslim more like Sufi style of Islam.
It’s very hard to connect al-Qaeda or link them to Al-Qaudea it very hard to find evidence to the link.
Let not mixing things here not jumping to wrong conclusion from our comfort seats.
More on
Uighur detainee denies working with al Qaeda; Chinese Muslim prisoners face persecution if returned home.(NATION)
In fact Bill Gertz repoerted that China Trained Taliban And Al-Qaeda Fighters Says US Intel
Vadim
Actually that poll you cited pretty much confirmed what I said.
Add the passive supporters of the Taliban, and you’ve got a majority. I didn’t say the Taliban were a majority throughout the country. They’re an ethnic movement.
In any case, the accuracy of polls in Afghanistan is doubtful. depends very much on the statistical manipulation of the figures, much more so than in peaceful countries. How likely are the presumptions made by outsiders?
Let’s be pessimistic and assume that NATO can succeed in Afghanistan. This would mean that, in the least hospitable terrain, a small portion of the armed forces at the disposal of the United States had succeeded in conquering the population and installing a government of its own choosing, beholden to it and allied with it.
It would mean that the Afghans had submitted to a reign of terror; surrendered to forces which have, since 2001, been responsible for the violent deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people, (information is controlled, distorted and overwhelmed by waves of propaganda purchased by those to whom it is fed) which has been a supervising accessory in prisoner massacres, run a gulag of camps ruled by torturers, bombed wedding parties with metronomic regularity, empowered criminal gangs and been utterly contemptuous of indigenous opinions or wishes.
In short a NATO victory would be an exemplary demonstration of the power and ruthless amorality of tyranny in the twenty first century.
Is that what we really want? Is that what the people of the NATO countries want?
bb: “If the Taleban retake Afghanistan AlQaeda will regroup in that country.”
Do you mean that under these conditions Osama bin Laden would leave his secret, unapproachable mountain hideaway and walk freely in the streets of Kabul, where the long arm of the law could easily grab him? I say: “Go for it.”
Bevin, that’s not what we want. Rather that’s the warping of reality that you want. Your post had no substance at all, you just stuck in propaganda for your own agenda. I will be optimistic and assume that NATO/ISAF/the Afghan government will be successful in Afghanistan: successful in holding back Taliban advancement and in negotiating a political solution.
Add the passive supporters of the Taliban, and you’ve got a majority…Yes, I would say a majority now.
Bizarre. You can’t add these imaginary “passive supporters” because the remainder of southwestern Afghans voiced explicit preference for the government, not the Taliban: “Preference in the Southwest for the current government rather than the Taliban has declined from 90 percent then to 77 percent now.” 77 percent is a large majority!!
They’re an ethnic movement.
I can only direct you to the ethnic breakdown of the poll, which shows that half the respondents are Pashto-speaking Sunni Muslims.
The same poll also shows that Afghans “strongly ” or “somewhat” support NATO/ISF forces in their country by a factor of 3 to 1.
the accuracy of polls in Afghanistan is doubtful
I’d be interested to hear how you imagine these statistics were manipulated. Why do you mistrust these polls more than your own intuition? Are you an Afghan?
Howdy,
Some of you may be interested in the research done by Martin I Wayne. He wrote journal articles and a book about China’s insurgency along their border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. In a nutshell, he says that at first China used brutal and militaristic methods to try to suppress the insurgency, but they failed. Later, they started using methods to encourage participation by the local Muslims about government and development and education issues. The insurgency quieted down to a point that it essentially disappeared until the Olympics.
Dr. Wayne suggests that the Chinese experience may be useful for the U.S. and NATO to replicate.
I have talked to him a few times and he a serious and friendly scholar. Here is his Asia Times piece about his research.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IB27Ad01.html
Bob Spencer
Salah, I am somewhat familiar with the Uighurs. I know the Han Chinese are flooding into their historic areas, and the Uighurs are becoming a minority in their own region. The Uighur culture is under pressure, the Chinese get first crack at jobs and housing, and etc. My referral to al Quaeda having any influence there was to mean that al Quaeda, “terrorists” et al are an excuse for cracking down on any and all dissent. The situation of the Uighurs is no different from that of the Tibetians.
There was an interesting report on my local TV station here. A local unofficial reporter from the Uighur Autonomous Area said that it is questionable whether there even was any attack. There were no physical signs anywhere in the area where it was reported to have happened, noone had seen anything. The report finished with a statement that a claimed “terrorist” attack is always a good excuse to exercise maximum security.
On another typic, I just love the story about the Pakistani lady scientist who is accused of connections with al Quaeda’s top leadership. According to the reports on BBC, she “wormed her way in” and “browbeat” the al Quaeda leadership. These are indeed the words BBC used!
It sure destroys the image of the downtrodden Muslim woman that the MSM has been carefully nurturing lo these many years! An educated, obviously self-aware woman “browbeating” Osama bin Laden! MSM, what have you done!
vadim,
I’d be interested to hear how you imagine these statistics were manipulated.
Vadim what make you so sure these polls are not statistics were manipulated, have any evidancs you can tell us?
In same talk’n then why those polls about numbers of Iraqi killed due to invasion is not accurate and statistics were manipulated ?
kassandra,
Iqbal Haider – Co-Chairperson the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that he have information that Dr. Afia Siddiqi was kidnapped by Pakistani inelegance and handed to CIA in 2003.
Here lawyer in NY said she was tortured and raped repeatedly while she is in US custody, in addition of the allegation she was married to al-Qaeda leader linked to 9/11 US lawyer argue that by saying its hard to see one of 9/11 terrorist have allowed to marry while he is under arrest or in US hand. Still the drama not folded all but this very serious case of CIA black work.
In Iraq there are much more cases of these sort what we saw of killing of scientists and high military commanders for the last five years looks its was similar case of empting Iraq from major professionals and high intelligent people and that mission was handed to Mossad which targeting Iraqi scientists and engineers specially who worked on Iraqi chemical / nuclear projects and the Iranians/Bader Militia who targeting military personal specially those Military pilots and military commanders who were in command of fighting during Iran/Iraq war in 1980-1988.
Helena, one of the ironic things is that one big motivation for the EU countries to keep supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan is that they want to preserve NATO as an organization that can act as a restraint on the US acting as a “rogue superpower”.
That is, their political leaders are making that calculation. But among the European public, the Afghanistan War is unpoipular. Polls in Germany have been showing that the public is more opposed to the Afghanistan War than Americans are opposed to the Iraq War. And that’s saying a lot.
It’s become a weird holding operation for the NATO countries. I don’t see how they can keep on indefinitely, though, with an intervention that unpopular that has so little obvious relation to their own national security. And then there are those political/cultural problems making any “success” unlikely, as you cite in your post here.
Things aren’t going well for the West in Afghanistan. Besides having to fight the Taliban—who recently blew a hole in a prison there and set 1,100 prisoners free, including 400 of their own fighters—the Western powers are having to take on an even more determined foe: hunger. The price of food has skyrocketed, and many poor Afghans can hardly afford to eat. Many are out of work and have no money, and those who do have a little money are already spending up to 70% of it on food, so there’s a lot of malnutrition and hunger. Six million people, nearly a fifth of the country, receive some sort of food aid, and the ranks of the hungry are growing all the time, to the point that officials are worried that people might rise up and loot the markets.
Afghanistan receives a lot of foreign aid, of course, but a lot of that is aid to foreign aid workers and projects that benefit foreign companies. I’m sure the aid workers who go there are sincere for the most part and really have a heart for the Afghan people, but the countries that send them often count their salaries as foreign aid to Afghanistan, and when those countries want to build something to fill the great need there, they’ll buy the materials in their own country from their own companies and ship them to Afghanistan via their own planes—again calling it foreign aid! It does help the poor Afghans somewhat, but it’d sure help them a lot more if the funds were invested locally!
Ted Rudow III,
Afghanistan receives a lot of foreign aid, of course, but a lot of that is aid to foreign aid workers and projects that benefit foreign companies.
Let put right friend it’s LOOTED of Aid by “foreign companies” either US companies or other from NATO courtiers.
The prove is their on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, all of US citizens concerned about their tax money paid for wars but the reality the money comes from right pockets and fly direct to left packet in name Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost ONE billion /Week
Afghanistan: Not a Good War
Conn Hallinan | July 30, 2008
Every war has a story line. World War I was “the war to end all wars.” World War II was “the war to defeat fascism.”
Iraq was sold as a war to halt weapons of mass destruction; then to overthrow Saddam Hussein, then to build democracy. In the end it was a fabrication built on a falsehood and anchored in a fraud.
But Afghanistan is the “good war,” aimed at “those who attacked us,” in the words of columnist Frank Rich. It is “the war of necessity,” asserts the New York Times, to roll back the “power of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
Barack Obama is making the distinction between the “bad war” in Iraq and the “good war” in Afghanistan a centerpiece of his run for the presidency. He proposes ending the war in Iraq and redeploying U.S. military forces in order “to finish the job in Afghanistan.”
Writing in Der Spiegel, Ullrich Fichter says that glancing at a map in the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) headquarters outside Kandahar could give one the impression that Afghanistan is under control. “Colorful little flags identify the NATO troops presence throughout the country,” Germans in the northeast, Americans in the east, Italians in the West, British and Canadians in the south, with flags from Turkey, the Netherlands, Spain, Lithuania, Australia and Sweden scattered between.
“But the flags are an illusion,” he says.
The UN considers one third of the country “inaccessible,” and almost half, “high risk.” The number of roadside bombs has increased fivefold over 2004, and the number of armed attacks has jumped by a factor of 10. In the first three months of 2008, attacks around Kabul have surged by 70%. The current national government has little presence outside its capital. President Karzai is routinely referred to as “the mayor of Kabul.”
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5423
Don you should read the poll cited in your FPIF oped:
Afghans voice confidence in their national government. Seven in ten (71%) are very or somewhat positive in their general opinion of the Karzi government (versus 20% who are negative), and six in ten (59%) believe the Karzi government represents their interests as an Afghan. On both questions views are more positive in Kandahar. …When considering their own situation, six in ten (60%) Afghans say they are personally better off today than they were in 2002
“Confidence in the ability of provincial governments in the Southwest to provide security is down by 20 points; confidence in the ability of the Taliban to provide security, while still much lower, is up by 19 points. As noted above, there’s been a 29-point drop in the number who say the Taliban has “no significant support at all” in the area. And very unfavorable views of the Taliban have fallen from 62 percent last year to 44 percent now. There’s been no change in views of the strength of U.S. or NATO forces in the region. But as noted, there’s been a huge 37-point drop in the number of people in the Southwest who report local support for NATO forces, as well as a 20-point drop in support for U.S. forces.”
http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/2007/12/afhans-remain-o.html
Vadim,
You cite polls in Afghanistan, which may or may not be valid. But it doesn’t matter. Nobody in power cares what Afghanis, or for that matter, Iraqis, Iranians, Americans or any other populace might think about their own government.
The US government is bent on its imperialistic ways, primarily, but not entirely, oriented toward the energy sector. It is also particularly adverse to any country that doesn’t toe the US line, because any nationalism would inevitably work against US corporate interests. What ordinary people might think is a non-factor.
The majority of Iraqis, according to polls, have wanted the US military out of their country for a long time. They have objected to wanton killing, night-time kick-in-the-door house raids, arbitrary imprisonment of young men, torture, and all the other niceties endemic to an alien military occupation. Have these polls been published in the US mainstream media, and have they been the basis for a change in US policy? No way, Jose. As the war in Afghanistan expands, and it will, the oppression against Afghan citizens will increase and their objection to it will carry absolutely no weight.
So quoting polls that claim that the citizens of Afghanistan love Karzai is like quoting polls that cite that the vast majority of Americans hate Bush and rate him even lower than Nixon: It simply doesn’t matter. Policies don’t depend on polls. They depend upon the national (corporate) interests of the big players.
Don,
Vadim has the common, and very dishonest habit of citing polls when they support his ideological position, and dismissing them out of hand when they contradict it.
“The majority of Iraqis, according to polls, have wanted the US military out of their country for a long time.”
As in from the very first poll in 2003 that asked that question. And the percentage who want the US out has steadily increased over time – not surprisingly. Based on polls taken in the last year or so even a majority of Kurds, who have not suffered the most severe ill effects of the occupation, believe the US is causing most of the problems, and want the US out sooner rather than later.
They have objected to…arbitrary imprisonment of young men…”
Not only young men, but also old men, women of all ages, and even children.
And now I will tell you a story – one of many related to me by a family member whom I saw when I was in `Amman earlier this year. This happened in 2003, or perhaps 2004 – I do not recall. Keep in mind, by the way, that in Iraq neighborhoods are very stable with the same families living there sometimes for generations, so even though it has been years and years since I lived in that house, or even entered it, I know all the people who were affected by this incident.
One day two American tanks rolled onto our street in Baghdad, one stopped at one end and the other at the other end. The guns of the tanks were pointed directly at our family house. Being a typical Iraqi woman, and since she speaks English well, my family member went out and asked the Americans what on earth they thought they were doing, to which they replied “we are protecting you, ma’am” (blatant lie # one for that incident). “How are you are protecting us by pointing those huge guns at our house?” she asked.
She went back to the house, and sat waiting with all the curtains open and the lights on. Eventually the tank guns turned and pointed to the houses directly across the street, and then gangs of American troops went rushing into those houses, yelling at the tops of their voices. She said they could hear them banging around and yelling inside the houses.
Eventually they came out of the house to our left with a soldier on each side holding the owner of the house, who is by now in his late 70’s and has Parkinson’s disease. When she saw this she ran out of the house and demanded to know what they were doing with the man, that it was obvious he has Parkinson’s, etc., etc.. Believe it or not, they told her they were taking him to the hospital (blatant lie # 2 for that incident – just how stupid did they think this strong, highly educated, very articulate woman was?!) to which she replied that obviously he does not need to go the hospital, that everything he needs is in his home, he is obviously no threat, and to let him go back inside. They took him away, and would not even let her get his medication for him.
Some days later he returned, and reported that he had been taken to a stadium with a bunch of other people, held there for days, and not even questioned until the very end. At that time they brought him into a room and brought out a form with a list of questions on it. The first question was whether he was Sunni or Shi`a, to which he replied “I am Muslim”. They insisted he had to tell them whether he was Sunni or Shi`a, and he continued to insist that he was Muslim. They told him they would not let him go unless he told them whether he was Sunni or Shi`a, and he insisted on answering that he was Muslim. Finally, they gave up and let him go.
PS I have no idea whether my former neighbor is Sunni or Shi`a, the family member who related the story to me did not say, and I did not ask. For all I know she does not know. Those are things no one ever used to think about because they were irrelevant, and of course it is completely irrelevant to the incident.
It was the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday in 2004. I opened my eyes and found an American soldier standing near the foot of my bed and directing his weapon at my head. I took my blanket off speedily, but gently. I thought at the time that any confused movement would cost me my life.
My brother Murtada was standing behind the soldier. He came to me, put his arm around me and said: “Don’t worry. Nothing happened. Just wake up and leave your bed gently.” I could not speak. I was scared and felt shy because I was wearing my pajamas. I was looking deeply into my brother’s eyes. I think he understood. He smiled and asked me to wrap the blanket around my body. I left my bed and left my room. I found my mom and my sisters standing in our foyer and my dad and my brother were standing in the hall. More than 10 soldiers were spread out inside our house.
Waking Up With Soldiers
Why do they hate you? YOU tell ME that.
Oh, no, wait, it must be a cultural thing – yeah, THAT’s it. Iraqis have an odd, exotic culture in which it is considered impolite for heavily armed foreigners to break into their houses in the middle of the night, trash the place, and take away family members to unknown locations, for unknown periods of time, for no known, or remotely acceptable reason.
Vadim has the common, and very dishonest habit of citing polls when they support his ideological position, and dismissing them out of hand when they contradict it.
“The majority of Iraqis, according to polls, have wanted the US military out of their country for a long time.”
And yes, I’ve cited dozens Iraqi opinion polls plainly representing this view which I myself hold!!… Alas, somehow Shirin hasn’t noticed .. just like she hasn’t noticed that this thread is about Afghanistan, and not Iraq. AFAIK Shirin counts no Taliban among her personal friends, nor has she hosted any dinner parties for Mullah Omar. Afghanistan seems very much unlike Iraq in dozens of ways.
Shirin my dear, Americans like you have no basis to speak for Afghans, or to claim that majorities of them support the Taliban (which I’ll remind you is the only position I’ve argued here… and if you’re arguing with me now you must believe the opposite! Say you don’t think the Taliban is supported by a majority of Afghans Shirin! That’s what the poll says, my friend. Is it a lie?
Yes Shirin, one of the best ways for we westerners (yes that means you) to learn about the views of foreigners is to read opinion polls, and not to attribute to them your own jejune occidentalism (or cook up apologies for barbaric movements like the Taliban, which if you’re arguing with me now you must be doing….so are you or arent you?)
Americans like you have no basis to speak for Afghans
You are hardly better placed, Vadim. A mechanistic belief in polls designed by westerners is scarcely worth anything. True that unfortunately the BBC committed its name, but regrettably the Beeb lets much propaganda past its portals these days.
I keep asking myself how it is that a poll can predict the thoughts of villagers on the mountaintops of Nuristan, a country so secluded that it was only known to the outside world in the 1950s (refer to A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, that I mentioned earlier). The answer is statistical manipulations, designed either by westerners or by city Kabulis. Neither of whom know enough to do a statistical weighting; they have their own prejudices.
In the end these polls are General Westmoreland stuff, designed to prove to the US establishment that it is winning.
[Q.] “Why do they hate you? YOU tell ME that.” [A.] Oh, no, wait, it must be a cultural thing – yeah, THAT’s it. Iraqis have an odd, exotic culture in which it is considered impolite for heavily armed foreigners to break into their houses in the middle of the night, trash the place, and take away family members to unknown locations, for unknown periods of time, for no known, or remotely acceptable reason.
Great keyboards click alike:
The name “Operation Iraqi Freedom” denotes a foreign military occupation of Iraq endlessly described as liberation — a term that, in practice, means the absolute opposite of any common-sense definition of “freedom.” For over five years, foreign troops have enjoyed the legal right to kill any Iraqi whom commanders deem fit to kill; to search any house commanders deem fit to search; and to detain any Iraqi whom commanders deem fit to detain.
===
Dr. Wayne’s account of the Chinese attitude towards opinion polling in Sinkiang may be pertinent: he says not a word about it. He did, more or less, say
“[A]t first China used brutal and militaristic methods to try to suppress the insurgency, but they failed. Later, they started using methods to encourage participation by the local Muslims about government and development and education issues. The insurgency quieted down to a point that it essentially disappeared until the Olympics. Dr. Wayne suggests that the Chinese experience may be useful for the U.S. and NATO to replicate.”
So, then: let AEI and GOP and DOD and USIP and NATO and AIPAC and TIAA-CREF and the DAR not waste any time or petroleum askin’ their neo-liberateds what they want. Nobody imperial and colonistical behaved like that back when imperialism and colonialism were in general successful. There is no point in asking questions that do not improve the position of the master folk when answered correctly, but could make the situation much more difficult if answered wrong.
The thing to do is simply take for granted that your natives want the product you are already providin’. If they understand what is good for them, that must — obviously — be what they want already.
Should they in fact want something different from what is good, . . . — well, what is the point of holdin’ the backwardness of your own neosubjects up for all the world to make fun of? It is not nice to mock mental cripples, no matter who they are. Plus reflect that the longer you have held people in neosubjection, the worse the whole show makes YOU look, you who are evidently incapable of teachin’ anybody to aspire towards the Obviously Good.
Far better and wiser, therefore, would be to ban opinion pollsters in your neocolonies, the same way Plato banned poets in his Republic. Also al-Jazeera, if possible.
I assume Cap’n M’Cain and his crew can take Afghanistan in hand for a century or two before it becomes absolutely impossible to avoid celebration of the Olympic Games there. So that should be no problem.
Happy days.
I keep asking myself how it is that a poll can predict the thoughts of villagers on the mountaintops of Nuristan,
Polls don’t predict thoughts alex, they report them. People on weblogs with axes to grind predict thoughts.
In the end these polls are General Westmoreland stuff, designed to prove to the US establishment that it is winning.
If the Iraq poll is ‘designed to prove the US is winning’, why are they so deeply critical of the US and its military (whereas the Afghan poll clearly isn’t, boo hoo.)
China’s handling of the Sinkiang insurgency puts me in mind of Spain’s successful tamping down of Basque terrorism after so many years of constant escalation. One day someone realized that what they had been doing – trying to crush the separatists with overwhelming violence and repression not only wasn’t working, it was having the exact opposite of the desired effect. So, they reasoned, maybe it makes sense to try something else. So they did, and lo and behold it worked.
designed to prove to the US establishment that it is winning.
What make people believes in words coming from lair’s mouths are they right or honest?
Why people keep believe in the lair’s words after seven years in Afghanistan and five years in Iraq?
Is this a matter of people to grind predict their lies and leave them?
Is that tells you some thing at the personal level these people keep listen to lairs?
Let see the new story here which Helena have interest in this. I believe most of you who care about war, humanity and peace will be very concerned with this new folded news:
France took part in 1994 genocide: Rwandan report
So which side you believe? Why these guys through the crimes on France??
Of course France rejects Rwanda’s genocide accusations, Are they laying?
US Marines making a house call in the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan July 9, 2008. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
http://www.warisaracket.org/marinesathouse.jpg
Don Bacon,
They not just doing the damage and breaking doors or house or other type as in Iraq but there are more stories about the thefts that US solders who have high trained and deplaned thieving jewellery from the Iraqi families one interesting story and reliable came from the daughter of former Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif she said in here story her marriage jewellery gifted by her Husband was theft by American solders when they searched her house in Yarmulke District as I recall.
I keep asking no single one answer us even Helena and all American why on earth US solders running wiled between Iraqis in streets and markets and house very tiny and far places look they hunting for some thing.!!!
A serial of Certified Lairs
To the People of Baghdad Vilayet:
Stanley, Sir Maude
Shirin, I follow your comments with much interest, but I will take some issue with the China/Sinkiang comment. I would say things seem quiet in Sinkiang because the Chinese are very good at imposing news blackouts.
I’ve been following Paul Goble’s http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/ for some time. Athough his blog deals mostly with the ex-Soviet areas of Central Asia, much of the trends/movements/ideas/situations among Muslims there could probably apply to the Chinese side. I don’t know anyone writing in English who does the same for the Chinese side.
Kassandra,
Thanks for your kind words.
If you want to take issue with what may or may not be happening in Sinkiang, you should address Gloomy Gus about it. I was merely piggy packing on his comment to make a comment of my own about Spain’s very effective managing of the Basque separatist terrorists. I really don’t know much about Sinkiang, but I do know that once the Spanish government decided that trying to stop violence with more violence and oppression was not working, and tried a different approach, they succeeded very well.
Too bad the Israelis and the Americans can’t figure that out after all these years – but of course that assumes that stopping the violence is their primary goal, doesn’t it?
Some of us are trying to make a point on Afghanistan, based on the Iraq experience.
It seems that US policy will be significantly to increase its military presence in Afghanistan, the “good war.” The point that some of us are trying to make is: Look at the consequences of the high military presence in Iraq. Any good will that the US currently enjoys in A. (despite the wanton killing) would undoubtedly disappear as it has done in Iraq as a result of increased military impact: killing, house raids, detention, torture, rape, etc. which result in increased animosities and greatly increased occupation resistance (which some mistakenly call insurgency), and a need for even more troops. It is a downward spiral to unknown consequences. A diplomatic solution based on increased engagement with Afghans — it’s their country — makes much more sense.
Then there are the other factors: Drawing Pakistan and Iran into the war (to say nothing of China and Turkmenistan, two other border states), lack of European (NATO) support, the possibility of new weapon introduction such as the Stinger missiles that drove Russia out, etc.
Don, you are making the jump that an increased military presence requires the practice of torture. I don’t see why that would be required. If Obama wins and implements a troop increase I would expect to be put under pressure to end all torture practices at the same time.
The increase in animosity stems from the dependence on air raids. An increase in ground troops is meant to take that dependence away. In that respect, the troop presence can stop a source of animosity. But ultimately a political solution is needed to end all animosity. In the Iraq experience, people have gotten fed up with fighting, or we’ve bribed fighting groups. That’s the true source of the decrease in tension in Iraq. In Afghanistan, an increase in military presence will work to hold back the Taliban insurgency, and a diplomatic reconciliation with people supporting the Taliban only because of objections they have to the current government and to NATO/ISAF, has to be applied simultaneously.
US war in Iraq had very different factors and objectives.
First Iraq not like Afghanistan at all Iraq was well organised state, where schools and universities to civil systems were up top comparing with all its neighbours.
Iraq had women in military from 1970, Iraq in 1980 was considered top of the list of third word countries list. Iraq was 80% of its people literate according to UN agencies Iraq had more than 50% of its nation beyond 35yera age. These facts about Iraq when its neighbours sinking down.
So US or American have knew this before they came and they starting distraction o a nation and country starting with looting and state lawlessness and then chaos.
What help US in Iraq first the proxy who cam with here and those Mullah and Militias that crated 20 years and its approved they hate Iraq and killing them in addition to Iraq neighbours who dreamed to eat Iraq as nation or country and they rush to do their dirty work under the eyes of American and we saw many occasions when conflict happed US alarms them by arresting or feeding the media with small amount of news accusing them..
This one [pint the second point this the geographic land of Iraq the majority of Iraq is flat land then US founded its very suitable of gated ethnics, district to control and isolate Iraqi communities in small canton this need more US troops that why the surge needed so on this way which copied from Israelis way of occupying the land and control the resistant for occupation US founded affective and done and we start hear the Surge success but its cost tens of thousand Iraqi arrest specially the youth and any one might have attention to resist US.
There are not records and real numbers of Iraqi detainees in US custody only sources is the leaking figures by US military!
In Afghanistan things very different the society and the nation have long time suffering of instability and the country suffer harshly for long time when no education system weak civil service and weak administration even if appeared it build on Wahabi style of religious policy and these hatful practice of Saudi style.
In addition afghani nation is scattered far in mountains and hills and caves so some communities hard to reach them they are self independent on central authorities this duet long history of wars and conflict also the absences of authority as such.
Inkan, I will let Don deal with your clear misinterpretation of what he wrote. As for your optimism regarding Obama, I do not share it. The U.S. government has committed plenty of war crimes, including torture, over a span of many administrations, including that of the saintly Jimmy Carter, and there is no reason to believe that Obama is any more apt to be driven by moral, ethical, or legal considerations than any other president has been.
And turning now to your “analysis” of what is causing animosity in either Afghanistan or Iraq, you clearly do not have a good grasp of the on-the-ground reality of the various aspects of war and occupation and how it affects the people subjected to it.
Inkan,
You fail to understand the brutality of a full-on US military occupation, although it has been well documented in Iraq. I suspect that you get your news primarily from the MSM. Soldiers handing out candy to kids, stuff like that, rather than those nasty pilots dropping bombs on them. War, in its present form, is not a tea party; it so terrible that many soldiers who survive it physically are incapacitated by the mental anguish it brings them. One little indicator: women who have lost men to the occupying force and their confederates, destroying themselves (and others) in revenge. What extraordinary animosity that represents. You don’t think torture is “required” in A.? It already has been “required.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
Shalah,
Of course Iraq and Afghanistan are different societies, with different considerations due to geography, but people are people everywhere, and the human resistance to a brutal military occupation is shared by all. As for history, A., unlike Iraq, has a recent, long, successful history of fighting and defeating foreign armies. Yes, the A. society is more localized, but now so is Iraq’s. Nation-building cannot be accomplished by military forces intent on destruction and killing, which are their specialties and what they are motivated to do. How are they motivated? One powerfully effective way is to stress the racial and religious differences between the US and its enemies.
Let’s face it, Obama’s call for an increase in US forces in Afghanistan is a call for a Surge.
The difference is that no end date is suggested. I am not equipped to debate the availability of US forces, the numbers etc., though obviously the totals are much less than in Iraq. Nevertheless it seems to me clear that the increase depends upon a major reduction in Iraq. I don’t believe that is possible, given the present tendencies.
I entirely agree with Shirin that Obama cannot be trusted and will continue the present imperial policies. The difference in my position is that I do not believe in US omnipotence. I don’t believe the US is capable of carrying out what it claims to want to do. Why, on the subject of the US economy, is off-topic, and we’ll discuss it another time.
but people are people everywhere, and the human resistance to a brutal military occupation
Don Bacon I think you miss my point here. I have all the respects to Afghanis likewise the Iraqi and all human resistance to occupation.
what I meant is what US did in Iraq might not works in Afghanistan due to points I mentioned, but its not any way I disrespect Afghanis society or resistance and their desire to live in our human loving world by fighting a series of a brutal military occupation exactly like their brothers in Iraq.
Of course US have long history of nation building scenario in South America, south East Asia with Dr. Death H. Kissinger and his student John Dimitri Negroponte (name Dimitri looks Russian name) with his gang from Col. James Steel worked in Iraq as Counsellor for the US Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces. Began “assisting” the Iraqi counter-insurgency force – the Special Police Commandos conducting multiple massacres in the hotspots of resistance blamed on the “insurgents” (Sydney Morning Herald, 22/11/2004). Don’t forgot Bush’s Shadow Army which equal in number the US troops in Iraq.
“US resorting to torture and elite killing squads was entirely predictable and only confirms what we already knew, that America will do whatever it takes – regardless of the barbarity – to crush the resistance and get control of Iraq. The idea that the America could liberate Iraq is a sick joke. Now we can only restate what is surely becoming more and more apparent: the troops should get out, immediately.”
It isn’t a case of mistrusting Obama. The new “decider” will “decide” to do exactly what the real power orders him to “decide,” and the real power (big surprise) is not the American people but the corporations and financial houses who really run the country (and are currently running it into the ground, as Alex suggests).
The whole concepty of Bush as “The Decider,” with his heirs to follow in the same role, was purposely set up to have us believe that an elected president is our autocratic leader, implementing policies he dreams up. Okay, it’s non-democratic, but at least under this (false) scenario the president is elected.
Any president needs support from the Congress and the Courts, and they all take their orders from the same source. Remember, Eisenhower didn’t warn us against a runaway president who couldn’t be trusted, his (correct) warning — as president!! — was against a runaway MI complex. That’s who’s in charge, and that’s why there will be no peace unless they are overthrown.
Salah,
I agree that Iraq and Afghanistan are different socially, politically and geographically, and that different tactics would be employed, all justified by a new PR effort. The question is: Can this effort succeed? Well, Afghanistan’s two major neighbors (Iran and Pakistan) apparently hope not, and while the Afghans are with the US now, the US is losing popularity as it increases its military presence. China is another border state, and Chinese missles have killed US soldiers in Afghanistan. The US has chosen not to condemn China as it has Iran.
It’s like Iraq in slow motion, because the US military heretofore has been relatively restrained, and as you point out Afghanistan is more backward, and more geographically and climatically challenging, but the result will be similar, a mess unsolvable by military means, and the mess will be accelerated by the coming Obama- or McCain-led US military “surge” under the new CENTCOM commander Petraeus. And this is the best scenario.
Captured Enemy Weapons
Look what they collecting as enemy weapons, although its weapon but the value of these weapon is in there history as personal collection, isn’t?
1- A U.S. 1911A1 .45-cal pistol made by the Ithaca Gun Co. during WWII.
2- An elaborately engraved CZ 75 9 mm pistol made in Czechoslovakia.
3- The remains of a pair of old M-16A1 5.56 mm rifles.
4- Three Tariq 9 mm pistols made in Iraq-the Tariq is a licensed copy of the Italian Beretta model 951.
5-A German Luger model P-08 9 mm pistol made by Mauser and dated 1937.
Inkan 68
During the American war for independence Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox took part in a debate in the House of Commons dressed in the colours of Washington’s army.
They were unashamed to make it clear that they regarded the war in America not only as mistaken but unjust and one in which their sympathies were with their King’s enemies. They were siding with their countryman Thomas Paine.
In this they were probably siding with a minority among the colonists for it is unlikely that more than one in three of the inhabitants of the 13 colonies was committed to Independence. There were probably as many Tories as there were Patriots.
The moral of this tale is that there are times when patriots side with those upon whom their government is making war. Vietnam was one such occasion. A time when a patriotic American, guided by conscience, sided with the NLF. I believe that Afghanistan is another. And that the resistance, including the Taliban, have the moral high ground. It is, after all, their country, not mine and not yours.
As the GI said: “I suddenly realized when that shot went over my head, just missing me, that I am in this man’s country and he is defending it.”
Today 08-08-2008, Twenty Years of the End Iraq /Iran War on 08- 8-08-1988
It is, after all, their country, not mine and not yours.
Why is it “their country” ? Why does Afghanistan belong to the Taliban rather than the huge majority of Afghans who consider them a menace?
Afghanistan no more belongs to the Taliban than the US belongs to white separatists in Idaho or the Ku Klux Klan.
It’s amazing to see people like bevin bending over backwards defending the Taliban’s “right” to control Afghanistan by force. The same people who denounce Israel as a theocracy blind to human rights. What a joke.
One more thing: there are no colonies in afghanistan, and very little western commercial interests of any kind other than drugs.
There is no point in asking questions that do not improve the position of the master folk when answered correctly, but could make the situation much more difficult if answered wrong.
This is silly. As already discussed, polls in Iraq that are front page news in the USA reveal that Iraqis want the US gone, and may for this reason have an influence on the outcome of US elections. If anyone is cherry picking data here it’s you.
The US had no problem with Afghanistan belonging to the Taliban ten years ago, when UNOCAL was negotiating with the Taliban for a gas pipeline. But the Taliban backed away, and so plans were made to invade. The idea that the US is in Afghanistan for reasons other than its strategic location between energy-rich Turkmenistan and Pakistan have been thoroughly disproven by US actions and statements. The US has made it clear from the beginning that it is in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban from power, and has nothing to do with OBL or al Qaeda.
But the Taliban backed away, and so plans were made to invade.
Don, years after the fall of the Taliban, even with world energy prices at record highs, no one (not even UNOCAL) is building any pipelines through Afghanistan.
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multi-page/documents/02388257.htm
This piece summarizes why (russia has long controlled turkmen gas, no one would risk the investment, there’s no market for it in india, western countries are pushing other projects like tcgp) but i don’t expect any of this to get in the way of a good story.
The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAP or TAPI) is a proposed natural gas pipeline being developed by the Asian Development Bank. The pipeline will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India. Proponents of the project see it as a modern continuation of the Silk Road. The Afghan government is expected to receive 8% of the project’s revenue. On 24 April 2008, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan signed a framework agreement to buy natural gas from Turkmenistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline
More US forces = more of this
U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan say Friday they inadvertently killed four women and a child while battling militants in central Afghanistan.
A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Rumi Nelson-Green, says the civilians were killed Thursday as troops moved in on a key Taliban militant in the Giro district of central Ghazni province.
She says armed militants threatened coalition forces, which responded with small-arms fire, killing several Taliban as well as the women and the child. Three militants were arrested.
The U.S. military called the deaths “inadvertent” and promised a full investigation.
About 2,500 people, including civilians, have been killed so far this year during fighting between coalition forces and militants.
Bevin, that’s a destructive presumption you make, that whatever cause you claim is supposedly so righteous that the majority opinion can be damned in name of that cause. You sound like you’ve rejected all context in favor of this horrifyingly romanticized image of the Taliban as some kind of heroic resistance, that the Afghans should embrace or else. I’m repulsed at your indulgence in patriotism.
Don, I never implied that soldiers did nothing more than hand out candy, or that combat doesn’t cause mental anguish in combatants. I’m not arguing that war is a tea party, you misrepresent me if you assert this. Everyone knows about the torture allegations in Bagram. The Bush administration embraced torture as a means to carry out its interests. I don’t think that embrace was unavoidable. If Obama wins, I expect a lot of pressure on him to stop all torture practices.
In all the cases of civilian deaths you cite you said nothing about how the deaths happen. Most of the total 2500 deaths happened from bombings. An increase in ground troops will limit that source of casualties.
I am glad to see the U.S. reverse the realpolitik policy of working with the Taliban in the 90’s.
Don, instead of relying on wikipedia why don’t you go over to the ADB website and look through the project summaries for Afghanistan.
http://www.adb.org/Projects/summaries.asp?query=&browse=1&ctry=AFG
ADB isn’t in the business of building multi-billion dollar pipelines-to-nowhere on behalf of big oil companies. What you’ll see here are dozens of aid projects in agriculture, infrastructure, and human development that could only occur with the protection of foreign troops.
It boggles the mind that you’d deny Afghans access to billions in assistance to indulge your hatred for the US military.
aid projects in agriculture,
Very laughable yes Aid for the agriculture.
During Taliban farmers stopped farming opium. UN agencies who have the money and financial program to encourage farmers around the world who give-up farming Opem they got UN Aide none of that Aid given to Agnostic farmers.
Naoe after the invasion of Afghanistan successfully producing dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by roughly 49 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a U.N. report said..
During Taliban farmers stopped farming opium.
They actually stopped farming it for only one year — 2001. Now it’s their main source of financing.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23597&Cr=afghan&Cr1
” Where anti-Government forces reign, poppies flourish,” he added, noting that the Taliban had reversed its religious edict of 2000 banning cultivation. “What used to be considered a sin is now being encouraged.””
after the invasion of Afghanistan successfully producing dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by roughly 49 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a U.N. report said..
See above — the same reports also tie that growth in production to Taliban. Although I don’t see why it should matter — if there’s a market for opium poppy that helps bring hard currency into the Afghan economy, the developed world should find a way to deal with it in ways other than armed interdiction, that doesn’t deprive afghan farmers of income.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/jul/24/foreignpolicy.uk
Sadly the US still embraces Reagan’s (actually, Nixon’s) “war on drugs” mentality, in afghanistan as in colombia. I’m sure we’d agree that having US gunships patrolling the crop output of other countries is generally speaking a very bad thing.
if there’s a market for opium poppy that helps bring hard currency into the Afghan economy
I disagree with you on this for many reasons and its not telling the facts of opium trading. Or smugglings by foreign forces
Please read this may help you, Afghanistan: Heroin producer to the world
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/drugs/heroin-afghanistan.html
if there’s a market for opium poppy that helps bring hard currency into the Afghan economy
I disagree with you on this for many reasons and its not telling the facts of opium trading. Or smugglings by foreign forces
Please read this may help you, Afghanistan: Heroin producer to the world
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/drugs/heroin-afghanistan.html
Vadim,
You want more US military deaths, I want less. So who hates the military?
news report:
Not long after Staff Sgt. Matthew D. Blaskowski was killed by a sniper’s bullet last Sept. 23 in eastern Afghanistan, his mother received an e-mail message with a link to a video on the Internet. A television reporter happened to have been filming a story at Sergeant Blaskowski’s small mountain outpost when it came under fire and the sergeant was shot.
Since then, Sergeant Blaskowski’s parents, Cheryl and Terry Blaskowski of Cheboygan, Mich., have watched their 27-year-old son die over and over. Ms. Blaskowski has taken breaks from work to watch it on her computer, sometimes several times a day, studying her son’s last movements.
“Anything to be closer,” she said. “To see what could have been different, how it — ” the bullet — “happened to find him.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/us/07afghan.html?ref=todayspaper
It ought to be unnecessary to add that, as any reasonable reader will understand, the resistance forces in Afghanistan are many and various.
Who the Taliban are and what they represent is far from clear.
It is certain that, if the resistance to invasion ever was restricted to the followers of the displaced regime it certainly is no longer. And that to call those who fight US/NATO forces Taliban, is simply to repeat the folly of going along with the idea that, in Vietnam, the only opponents of the puppet government were the VietCong, or Communists, “And we all know what that means.”
Of course in Iraq they are called “anti-Iraqi forces’ just as the Maquis were called opponents of France. Oh what a tangled web they weave…
Don, by the same phenomenon they refer to any and all resistance in Iraq as Al Qa’eda. For some time they were even trying to link Muqtada Al Sadr to Al Qa’eda, and claimed more than once that he was working with the magical mystical one-legged guy – what was his name? You know, the guy who periodically came out with violently anti-Shi`a screeds, and who was supposedly responsible for the anti-Shi’a violence – until the Americans finally managed to kill him, anyway.
The really revolting thing is the way all this bull**** gets mindlessly repeated and repeated and repeated by the media and the pundits and even a lot people who should know enough to at least question it until it becomes the received truth.I guess Goering was right.
“Why, of course the people don’t want war . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country..”
—Hermann Goering, 1946
Who the Taliban are and what they represent is far from clear.
It seems clear enough to Afghans what they represent since Afghans have no problem answering questions about them. And you — a non-Afghan — seem equally clear about their goals, although you haven’t shown us any supporting evidence beyond your own superior intuition.
It ought to be unnecessary to add that, as any reasonable reader will understand, the resistance forces in Afghanistan are many and various.
Reasonable readers would expect a claim like this to be documented somehow.
by the same phenomenon they refer to any and all resistance in Iraq as Al Qa’eda
Who is this ‘they?’ Anyone with an internet connection can read all about Iraq’s many armed factions (yet another way in which Iraq is not Afghanistan!)
eg:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4268904.stm
Of course in Iraq they are called “anti-Iraqi forces’ just as the Maquis were called opponents of France.
Shirin, has it occurred to you that –yes resistance groups aren’t all reincarnations of Al Qaeda nor are they all reincarnations of the Maquis? Obviously there are legitimate and illegitimate resistance groups, and criminal gangs who wrap themselves in the banner of ‘resistance’ to cloud public opinion.
I really don’t understand where people like yourself or bevin draw the line distinguishing FARC and the Taliban from legitimate national resistance movements (and of course anarchists like Timothy McVeigh wouldn’t draw the line at all.) If a group hasn’t even identified itself and its leadership to the world nor stated its organizing principles (even FARC has met this very low standard) how could any government -even an ideal government by and for the Afghan population- possibly be expected to negotiate with it let alone sign any peace treaty (who’d do the signing much less the enforcing?)
The ‘resistance movements’ in Iraq, Montana, Bogota, pre-revolutionary Virginia etc aren’t made more real by the projection of outsiders. All we see here is reified anti-US-ism.
You want more US military deaths, I want less. So who hates the military?
I’m very glad you don’t hate the military Don, though I wouldn’t doubt you hate its deployment, anywhere on earth, for any purpose. And of course I’m also happy to tell you that I don’t want more military deaths (I don’t want more firemen deaths either, but I’m still going to call the fire department if my neighbor’s house is burning down)
Believe me if I could extract NATO forces from Afghanistan altogether and replace them with an idealized multi-national police force (armed with the latest in non-lethal weaponry – phasers set to stun, maybe) — I’d be right there with you.
In other news, Desmond Tutu recently called for armed peacekeepers to uphold the political rights of Zimbabweans. Are we presuming they’d be armed with water pistols?
Vadim,
I oppose US military aggression anywhere on earth. It has proven to be ineffective, destructive and overly expensive in places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Chicken-hawks like you, who delight in sending others to their death, seem unable to understand that resolution conflict without the use of force is possible, and then support the use of force (by others, of course, never by themselves) to support their false fantasies.
who delight in sending others to their death
Don, my dear dear friend, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. No one here delights in anything like bloodshed. Like you, I advocate the complete removal of NATO troops and their replacement with a fleet of peacekeeping androids. I know scientists are hard at work on the problem down at Quaker HQ. How else are all these conventions going to be enforced without putting precious human blood at risk?
By the way Don, your accusations have got me thinking a bit about how to really end violence in Afghanistan. Rather than petitioning US soldiers (who on the whole are right wingers) to lay down their guns I’ve decided that anti-violence peace advocates like us should prove we’re more dedicated to peace than our personal safety.
What better way than to take our message of force-less conflict resolution to the other side of the battlefield? Instead of lecturing US Marines or their enablers at home, we should be marching through Helmand province passing out Pashto translations of Thoreau to some Taliban types and see if anyone will bite. Or better still, organizing some non-violent demonstrations on behalf of schoolteachers, women, or the scantily clad.
What do you say – are you willing to join me? Or is this non-violence game best played over the internet at a safe distance?
Vadim,
The US are destructive interlopers in foreign lands, and the last thing the US should be doing is handing out any sort of tracts. Thoreau has nothing to offer on conflict resolution, but there are people, skilled in conflict resolution and diplomacy, and power politics, who are willing and able to work with people and reach negotiated and/or dictated terms for conflict resolution and settlement.
In Iraq, Iran has apparently subdued the Sadrists and directed Maliki to order the US military out, which coincides with the wishes of the majority of Iraqis and of course suits Iran. That’s apparently conflict resolution by Iran (we’ll see).
In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the US caused the conflict, so there should be a special burden on the US to resolve it. Iran (at least currently) isn’t a factor there. They may become one. But the US refuses (as in Iraq), insisting (as they have done in Iraq) that only force can resolve the conflict, which of course is a contradiction. Perhaps Pakistan or some other country will become a factor in Afghanistan and resolve the conflict as Iran has done in Iraq. The US is apparently only interested in prolonging the conflict, not resolving it.
In the meantime, I am doing what I can, through the Smedley Butler Society, and blogging, to weaken Americans’ (and soldiers’) resolve for the initiation and continuation of aggressive wars. What do you say – are you willing to join me?
“In Iraq, Iran has apparently subdued the Sadrists and directed Maliki to order the US military out…”
Not really, unfortunately, Don. Or if that is what Iran has directed Maliki to do, that does not appear to be what Maliki is doing. At best what he is doing is trying to give an appearance of taking a strong stand on withdrawal, while allowing the U.S. to buy time by suggesting a reconfiguration of the occupation. This deal should be a non-starter for any Iraqi who really cares about independence and self-determination.
The US are destructive interlopers in foreign lands, and the last thing the US should be doing is handing out any sort of tracts
One of the problems with your analysis is that it conceives of the Afghan war as a US-manufactured and US-centered event. Quite simply if the US left Afghanistan tomorrow, the conflict would continue, and many people would die. There are thousands of non-US soldiers in Afghanistan pursuing an international mandate to ensure the safety of its people, the establishment of a representative government and the provision of vital aid and public services.
I am doing what I can, through the Smedley Butler Society, and blogging, to weaken Americans’ (and soldiers’) resolve
No offense Don, but you’re wasting your time. Lecturing one side (and only one side) of a conflict isn’t pacifism. If I were a US soldier shipping out for Afghanistan, the last person I’d listen to is someone who views the Taliban as a US manufactured phenomenon, and US-soldiers as war criminals, and the Taliban as benign freedom fighters. Someone who wouldn’t risk his life even for the cause of peaceful conflict resolution.
but there are people, skilled in conflict resolution and diplomacy, and power politics, who are willing and able to work with people and reach negotiated and/or dictated terms
I’m asking you why you aren’t one of them. Negotiating peace is dangerous business Don. Why are you handing it off to someone else instead of embracing this duty, seeing as you’re happy to take a “tough stand” on the internet against US imperialism? Have you taken any kind of risk in promoting these beliefs – even as minor a gesture as a tax strike? Or is it all armchair pacifism?