So there is Donald Rumsfeld, nearly six years into the Bush administration, and he has still managed to evade all the attempts to even start to hold him accountable for the violence he has played a big role in unleashing around the world during his tenure…
And here is Donald Rumsfeld, on the op-ed page of the WaPo today, telling us that in Afghanistan, over the five years since the US-led invasion, “the trajectory is a hopeful and promising one.”
I could spend some time refuting some of the rosy claims he makes about Afghanistan in this article. His claim, for example, that “Almost 600 schools have been built, and now more than 5 million children attend school, a 500 percent increase from 2001.” But how about this October 2 report from the UN’s IRIN news service that tells us that:
- Currently, due to fear of attacks, the doors of some 330 mixed schools have been closed in Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces alone, according to Saifal Maluk, head of education in Helmand province.
And it’s not just the south where primary education is suffering. “More than 200,000 students are shut out of schools across the country because of school closures due to fear of attacks,” Deputy Education Minister Mohammad Sadiq Fatman told IRIN from Kabul.
… Well, I could take on several of Rumsfeld’s claims in a similar way. But what really riveted me about his article was some of the language he used up near the top of it.
Especially the way he described the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, here: “from halfway around the world — with but a few weeks’ notice — coalition forces were charged with securing a landlocked, mountainous country…”
“Charged”. That makes it sound like they had some kind of official mandate for the invasion, doesn’t it? But in fact, the national armed forces that participated in the “coalition” had mandates only from their own governments. The UN Security Council did not come onto the scene with a resolution that explicitly authorized any outside military intervention in Afghanistan until December 20, 2001. That was Resolution 1386, that authorized the establishment of an international force to “assist” the “Afghan Interim Authority” that had by then been installed in Kabul by the US forces…
“Securing.” Now that is an interesting use of the word. To “secure” something can perhaps in military terms mean to “grab hold of it”– which was more or less what the US-led forces did to Afghanistan in October 2001. But most people would probably think that “securing” would also involve making a place secure. And that, the US-led invasion of the country has clearly failed to do.
Here is Bronwen Roberts of AFP, reporting yesterday:
- Widely agreed to have learnt more sophisticated tactics that reflect the methods of international terrorists, the fundamentalists are leading a revived insurgency.
Nearly 100 foreign soldiers have been killed this year in their attacks on the 40,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, and around 170 civilians have died in more than 90 suicide attacks blamed on Taliban…
Meanwhile opium production in Afghanistan, the world’s biggest producer, jumped by nearly 50 percent this year on the previous year.
Officials have said some of the proceeds may be going towards funding the Taliban.
Outspoken parliamentarian Ramazan Bashardost is particularly critical of the developments of the past five years.
“There is freedom for the people … but in the economy, politics and military it is a disaster,” he told AFP.
“In Afghanistan there is now less security today than one year ago, there are a lot of people without jobs.”
Roberts also notes that, despite the many, extremely costly military operations the US and its allies have undertaken in and around Afghanistan, both Osama bin Laden– whose “harboring” by the Taliban had been the reason the Bushites invaded the country in the first place– and Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, are still at large. (Funny that Rumsfeld makes no mention of that in his piece, don’t you think?)
I frankly admit that I don’t know enough about Afghanistan to be able to judge with confidence whether the situation of the country’s people is, on balance, better today than it was when the Taliban were in power, or not. One thing that seems clear is that it was pretty bad then, and it is pretty bad now, as well. And clearly, a large proportion of the country’s 30 million people are currently quite unable to feel “secure.”
I opposed the US invasion when it was still being prepared (though perhaps, in retrospect, not forcefully enough.) In the weeks after September 11, 2001, I argued that smart, coordinated, international police action was the best way to capture Osama Bin Laden and enough of his key lieutenants to incapacitate Al-Qaeda’s global networks.
But the Bushites were determined to wage war– and to wage it, as we soon enough learned, not just against Afghanistan but also against Iraq.
And now, the US-led forces are tied down badly, and bleeding, in both countries. But the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq– especially, I think, Iraq– are bleeding far, far worse than any of the invading countries.
We US citizens need to become a lot clearer than we have been thus far about the degree of harm and suffering that our government’s actions have inflicted on other peoples around the world. We need, desperately, to find new, non-violent paradigms for how our government can set about resolving the concerns and conflicts it will inevitably have with other governments– and we need to start to advocate strongly for, and follow, those nonviolent paradigms, rather than allowing our government to continue along the path of militarism and domination.
We need to bring our troops home from Iraq, and from Afghanistan, and to require our government that it work respectfully with the other nations of the world to find new models for addressing the security challenges that will remain in those two countries, as well as in far too many other (long-neglected) countries around the world. At least, if we start slashing our government’s spending on the military there should be a lot of money– from our own national budget, as well as from the budgets of other nations that currently try to compete or to “catch up with” ours in this regard– available to start redirecting toward new and effective models of UN peacekeeping, toward righting global economic imbalances, and to meeting the general global challenge of under-development and inequality.
But I think this whole effort has to start with recognizing the degree of harm our government’s militarism has already inflicted on the world.
One good way to come out against this will, of course, present itself when we go to the vote November 7. I have no illusions that most Democratic politicians have more of a “pro-peace” outlook than most Republicans. But at least if we can mobilize our fellow-citizens successfully against this lot now in power, and their policies, then after that we can carry on by urging the Democrats toward a better relationship with the rest of the world…
And in the meantime, we’ll have to carry on putting up with Rumsfeld. But oh, wouldn’t it be great if we had a Congress that would truly try to hold him accountable?
The Last Hurrah:
“Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/07/AR2006100700374.html
There is an unmistakable aura of Gilded Age arrogance and delusion about this scene, don’t you think?
While I couldn’t agree with you more that we have to try to replace the current lot in power with the other lot, as a prerequisite to anything better, I was distressed to discover that the House of Representatives effectively voted for war on Iran last June. They don’t even bother to tell us these things these days.
Ah Helena
Isn’t the old man’s swan song sad and pathetic?
To figure out what is going on you merely need to read the Murdoch press.
Todays Sunday Times in London has two pieces in the Review section.
One decribes how in a manner analagous to Robert Macnamara his autocratic style overrode the advice of Generals and Admirals to take command of the Afghan and Iraqi episodes.
In the other Andrew Sullivan describes him as dreadful and suggests firing him as an opportunity.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2393411,00.html
In years gone by, there was a custom of retreating to a monastery to live out the remaining days contemplating ones sins.
These days they just write autobiographies.
It must be a terrible thought to live with that you will in future times be used as the subject of a case study.
Given that the Worst and the Dullest have once again taken to fighting colonial imperial wars on the basis of flawed figures of speech instead of national interests and rational strategies, I thought I’d contribute:
“Dead Metaphors”
We serve as a symbol to shield those who screw us
The clueless, crass cretins who crap on our creed
We perform the foul deeds they can only do through us
Then lay ourselves down in the dark while we bleed
Through cheap Sunday slogans they sought to imbue us
With lust for limp legacy laughably lean
Yet the Pyrrhic parade only served to undo us
We die now for duty, not “honor” obscene
We carried out plans that the lunatics drew us
Their oil-spotted, fly paper, domino dream
Then we fought for the leftover bones that they threw us
While carpetbag contractors cleaned up the cream
We did the George Custer scene Rumsfeld gave to us
We took ourselves targets to arrows and bows
While the brass punched their tickets, the Indians slew us
A “strategy” ranking with History’s lows
When veterans balked they contrived to pooh-pooh us
With sneers at our “syndrome” of Vietnam sick
When that didn’t work they set out to voodoo us
With sewer boat slanderers paid to be slick
The wad-shooting gambler comes once more to woo us
His PR team planning precise photo ops
For to sell his used war he’ll have need to construe us
As witless weak wallpaper campaign-ad props
The nuts and the dolts in their suits really blew us
They made our life’s meaning a dead metaphor
Still, no matter how Furies and Fate may pursue us
The Fig Leaf Contingent has been here before
As the years pass in darkness the graveyards accrue us
As early returns on investments gone wrong
So the next time “supporters” of troops ballyhoo us
Remember this warning: our sad silent song
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005
Today on the Internet I saw another of those horrible pictures of our soldiers breaking into Iraqi homes, trampling all over the place in their dirty boots, opening drawers and rifling through personal possessions, with veiled and terrified Iraqi women cringing on the floor. It reminded me of doing “sweeps” through native villages in the now-defunct Republic of Vietnam thirty-five years ago, feeling as degraded myself as I could only imagine the sullen, blank-faced Vietnamese must have felt. With all this in mind, then, I thought I’d contribute:
“Ebb and Flow”
We have done this before
Now we do it once more
We kick open the door
Leaving her on the floor
Petrified
Once inside, though, we find
That the enemy’s mind
Is a different kind
So he’s left us behind
Stupefied
Then we stay for a spell
In that bleak, blasted hell
Bagging up those who fell
So their mothers can’t tell
How they died
Then, surrounded, we wait
For that moment when fate
Either early or late
Orders us out the gate
With our pride
When we go they come back
First they flee then attack
Daytime bright, nighttime black
It’s not courage they lack
On their side
They’ve got nowhere to go
This is home: all they know
We can lay the place low
Blood in rivers may flow
Deep and wide
Still the families mourn
Ours and theirs, spirits torn
Of all hopefulness shorn
Only grief; nothing born
From Death’s bride
In the end we’ll depart
As we came: dumb not smart
Leaving others to start
Healing wounds and with heart
Turn the tide
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005
We Americans have done quite enough harm to Iraq and the Iraqi people. We need to stop now. For our own sakes as much as for theirs.
It’s easy to agree that we’ve done enough damage, that our empire is dying, and that we should find new models of interaction with the rest of the world. But I think those models — based on humility, power-sharing, fairness, peace-building, respect, economic justice, and enticement of outliers (rather than threats, coersion, and violence) into some sort of decent community of nations — have been known for a long time. Yet both Republicans and Democrats are loathe to implement them. Why is that?
Why is that?
Simply that’s how are they.
For many decades Americans and other can’t see themselves well and their behaviours and their history of “threats, coersion, and violence”.
Isn’t it the Cowboy times is their great days?
Isn’t the war in South East Asia with the “threats, coersion, and violence” their behaviourism?
Isn’t the war in South America (Panama, Al Salvador, Argentina.) with all “threats, coersion, and violence” spading democracy their and those killer’s criminal’s still living between you and they advices your president each day?
The question is what wrong with you US People? Wakeups and asked for your rights from the Tyranny that hold the White House he feel he’s doing a great job for you.
Although I share the skepticism regarding the Democrats, it will be nice to see the Republicans take a licking in November:
“in search of new paradigms”
During the 20th Century, I (born 1945) believed that the world peace ultimately relied on U.S STRENGTH AND MIGHT. I acknowledge now that I believed it all the time though I did not formulate it ; even if I was critical of some dubious ventures, but “that’s history” now. The US is nowadays stuck in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. thus it should (a “probability” should, not a “morality” should) attack neither Iran nor North Korea.
Therefore, in the 21th Century (1st decade, let us remain humble) I believe that the world peace ultimately relies on U.S WEAKNESS.
Isn’t it astonishing ?
A foreign reader, worse, a Frenchman…
Afghanistan is not rosy, and it probably will never be. Lately it looks like Afghanistan is gravitating back to the Taliban.
It should have never been the US job to make Afghanistan rosy, and if they want a Taliban lifestyle that is their choice. The US should just break their place into pieces if and when Afghanistan becomes the locus of Jihad, training, mega terror, and all the things it was before 2001.
Choices have cost, our duty is to state and exact that price if necessary, not to fix the unfixable. What does Helena expect? The Japanses miracle in Kandahar?
Helena, the last paragraph of your article, looks that you and other folk living under a regime which you don’t have really control of your life as such.
Wounder if the November vote goes well what about the presidentional Vote last time with the miss in voting process!
BTW, Bush he sent theses guys to come with solutions (G.O.P.’s Baker Hints Iraq Plan Needs Change, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/middleeast/09baker.html?em&ex=1160539200&en=77f3edfcd9fae0fa&ei=5087) about Iraq and the group mix of Democrats and Republicans, see there initial thought there are no fast returns for you troops home, bear in mind the political system in US with two parties make no sense, its just “game playing” on different sides both parties heavy weights and business orientated peoples, they trying to be more brightest and humanists than the one in the power as soon as been in the house there are no much difference THIS IS USA believe or not
Jean Granoux, soyez le bienvenu! C’est bien mieux pour nous les americains quand les francais et tous les gens du monde participent avec nous dans ces discussions assez importants…
“One good way to come out against this will present itself when we go to vote Nov. 7. If we can mobilize our fellow-citizens successfully against this lot now in power then after that we can carry on by urging the Democrats toward a better relationship with the rest of the world… ”
Helena, I wish I had your faith. It must be a comfort to be able to continue to believe in the integrity of our political system, and its’ self-correcting ability.
I don’t see any reason to think that the Democrats will do anything other than what they have been doing for the past 6 years. If the Democrats had exercised their function as political opposition the country would not be in this mess.
Yes, “this lot in power” have been the actors who brought about the terrible losses that we have experienced as a nation. But without the collaboration of the Democrats — the political opposition — they would not have been able to do this. In a democracy, the political opposition acts as the brake to those in power. We’re heading for the cliff, full-throttle.
I’m planning on voting Green Party. Better to go off tilting at windmills than casting a vote for the lesser of two evils again.
I enjoy your blog immensely! Thank you for providing the forum to debate the many issues that you do.
“One good way to come out against this will present itself when we go to vote Nov. 7. If we can mobilize our fellow-citizens successfully against this lot now in power then after that we can carry on by urging the Democrats toward a better relationship with the rest of the world… ”
Helena, I wish I had your faith. It must be a comfort to be able to continue to believe in the integrity of our political system, and its’ self-correcting ability.
I don’t see any reason to think that the Democrats will do anything other than what they have been doing for the past 6 years. If the Democrats had exercised their function as political opposition the country would not be in this mess.
Yes, “this lot in power” have been the actors who brought about the terrible losses that we have experienced as a nation. But without the collaboration of the Democrats — the political opposition — they would not have been able to do this. In a democracy, the political opposition acts as the brake to those in power. We’re heading for the cliff, full-throttle.
I’m planning on voting Green Party. Better to go off tilting at windmills than casting a vote for the lesser of two evils again.
I enjoy your blog immensely! Thank you for providing the forum to debate the many issues that you do.