We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. ~ Barack Obama (President of the United States. Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. December 10, 2009)
For years, Americans saw live, and in person, or on television screens, Presidential aspirant Barack Obama. Several mused; the man is calm in a crisis. "No drama Obama" was the phrase most often associated with the candidate. Those closely and personally connected to the potential President corroborated what was for most only an observation. The election did not change Barack Obama. His calm demeanor remained intact. Yet, many perceived a difference, not in his response to a predicament, but in the President's rhetoric. Empathy evolved into escalation. This was perhaps most evident on two occasions, when Mister Obama delivered his Address on the War in Afghanistan, and then again when the Commander-In Chief offered his Remarks in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. After these events, the pensive pondered; what was there all along, Cerebral Discord, the Two Faces of Barack Obama.
War Is Not The Answer. U.S. Intelligence Admits: There Are Only 100 Members of Al Queda In Afghanistan. Revival Of The Domino Theory.
I listened to President Obama the other night trying to justify his decision to escalate the U.S. Wars in the Middle East. I don't think there was one word in his speech that had not been carefully placed there, with great deliberation, to allow him and the Democrats lots of wiggle-room and disclaimers for the future.
Some people "heard" that the U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan within 18 months, by July of 2011. But that's not what he said. Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. was on Rachel Maddow the following evening, and she made hair-splitting statements on that issue such as no, the troops will not be withdrawn by July of 2011, but the U.S. will begin to withdraw troops as the situation allows. Rachel Maddow asked whether Rice meant all the troops -- was Obama saying all the troops would begin to be withdrawn with no permanent U.S. bases staffed and in place forever? Or did he just mean some of the 30,000 additional troops would begin to be withdrawn? The answer was slick, clever, and evasive. Draw your own conclusions, but mine is that there is no intention by the U.S. to withdraw troops from the countries we now occupy, other than for the purpose of attacking and invading other countries such as Pakistan and Iran.
What is really going on is a revival of the old Domino theory. Listening to the ambassador try to justify this military occupation was a convoluted effort. Yes (she acknowledged) it's true that there are not many al Queda people in Afghanistan (U.S. intelligence admits that there are only One Hundred people, 100 al Queda people inside Afghanistan). See http://www.informationclearing...
But, the Ambassador worries, even if there are very few al Queda members inside Afghanistan, they might come back someday. They could. It's possible. And therefore, we need to send in an additional 30,000 troops, bringing U.S. troops levels in Afghanistan to 100,000.
Obama said he was going to be honest with the American public about the cost of his escalation. He says the escalation will cost Thirty Billion Dollars. $30,000,000,000.00. Some people heard that the entire continuation of the war would cost Thirty Billion, but that's not true. Thirty Billion is the extra amount that we'll spend on top of the money we were already spending in Afghanistan.
According to the website Cost Of War, the U.S. has spent $233 Billion so far in the war against Afghanistan which, according to Obama, was not really much of a war at all. We've spent $706 Billion on the U.S. War against Iraq. Total for the two wars so far is $939 Billion, almost One Trillion Dollars. That's just what we've spent so far, and does not include the costs to our country for the injured veterans' care in the future. It does not include the costs of escalation. It does not include the new war we are starting against Pakistan. It does not include the war they want to start against Iran. Our economy is in ruins, our politicians are all on the payroll of the corporations which really run this country, our jobs have been sent to China to be done by slave labor, foreclosures are at a record high. These wars are bankrupting our country. Some estimates show that each family in this country will end up paying $50,000 for these wars. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it starts to add up. http://www.costofwar.com/
Instead of just being honest with the American public about the additional cost from escalating the war, how about if Obama instead explains exactly how he plans to pay for this. With my money? I'm an American citizen, I don't have any money. The Republicans stole it all. So how will Obama pay for this, when the country is already broke? Shutting down schools, firing cops, failing to help the bankrupt states so they have to raise tuition in state colleges and only the rich can afford an education? How exactly does he plan to pay for all this war? If we're going to get honest about money, let's get real honest.
After all, the Ambassador continued, Pakistan is the real problem. She went on and on about Pakistan. But madam Ambassador, I wish Rachel had said, the Constitution gives only Congress the authority to declare war. Not the President. The President has no authority to start a war against any nation unless Congress has voted to do so. So how on earth can Obama now argue that we need 30,000 troops to fight in Afghanistan against people in Pakistan, when we are not at war with Pakistan. There has been no Congressional authorization for the U.S. to start a war against Pakistan. Does Obama, the Constitutional law scholar, intend to follow the Bush Doctrine, which is that the President can do whatever he wants, invade any country he wants?
First we had World War I, the War to End All Wars. When Americans came back from that war, they said no thanks, we don't want no more stinkin' wars. Then we had World War II. Which was largely the result of the economic crash in the entire world caused by U.S. criminals operating on Wall Street and stealing everyone else's money. Then we had Korea. What the heck was the U.S. doing in Korea? And Vietnam. And the standoff in Berlin with the U.S. on one side and the Soviet Union on the other. The Cold War. I'm not sure why it was called that, but on the surface it was mostly the U.S., the Soviet Union and China all claiming the others were trying to destroy them, all obtaining weapons and threatening to annihilate the other if they attacked first. Think of two well-armed men in a small room pointing a loaded gun at each other, fingers in the trigger, then standing there for 50 years.
Instead of having a peace dividend at the end of World War II, the military industrial complex (private war profiteers) began cheerleading for more weapons, more wars, so they could continue to take most of the U.S. budget every year for "defense." Instead of building schools and providing healthcare and free education for all Americans, instead of building affordable housing and providing all Americans with a decent pension on retirement, instead of that our money is stolen and used to pay for useless weapons.
How is this possible? Why would the American public stand for it? Such a waste.
The Domino Theory was one popular explanation as to why we needed to spend most of our public money on military contractors, buy more weapons, more planes, more bombs, more tanks. The Domino Theory is this: if one nation "falls" to communism (becomes a communist government) then every other nation in the region will also "fall" to communism. In other words, under the Domino Theory you don't even need one communist, or one al Queda member, inside a country, in order to justify invading it and militarily occupying it forever. After all, somebody might come along if we weren't there, and might try to set up a communist government. Better safe than sorry. Better dead than red.
And now we have the highly esteemed U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. trying to explain that Obama essentially has adopted the Domino Theory as his middle east policy. Talk about Deja Vu all over again. No, there is not much of an al Queda presence in Afghanistan (some U.S. intelligence experts say there are fewer than 100 al Queda members in Afghanistan). But they might come back. And if they did, then they could take over Pakistan too, and maybe Iraq or Saudi Arabia. When one Domino falls, it topples the whole line. We would be in danger if that happened.
Here's the truth. Whatever the imagined de jure bogey-man fear is that is used to justify the U.S. military attacking and invading and occupying and controlling other countries, dogmas and doctrines come and go, but the underlying conditions for world instability remain the same: poverty, hopelessness, oppression, injustice, lack of opportunity and despair.
People who have good lives have no interest in blowing up their neighbors. People who have nothing to lose will risk their lives for a bite of bread. Nobody acknowledges that the widespread appeal of the Taliban and al Queda comes from the conditions imposed on the middle east by western nations stealing their oil: widespread unemployment, lack of opportunity, horrendous levels of poverty, humiliation for over a century by Western occupation, injustice, despair and hopelessness.
Those are the conditions that give rise to people willing to risk their lives for a little bread for themselves, hope for their children. These are the conditions that give rise to the level of rage that would lead a person to fly an airplane into a hi-rise building. All the Western nations have done in the middle east is occupy the countries, demean and humiliate the people, and steal their resources. That's it. And occasionally our occupying forces and private contractors rape the women, just because they can.
Want to end the instability in the middle east and everywhere else in the world? Listen to Marvin Gaye. War is not the answer. War creates victims which creates enemies which creates more violence and more war.
The U.S. should immediately end the wars and instead use these billions of dollars to begin a reconstruction program through an international organization, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Only local people can be hired. Build homes, roads, sanitation facilities, water systems, hospitals, clinics, schools. Condition the assistance on civil rights for women including the right to travel, to work, to be free from abuse.
Listen to Marvin Gaye: Barack Obama, we don't need to escalate. War is not the answer....
http://NABNYC.blogspot.com
American success in Afghanistan should be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” not the number of enemy fighters killed, he said.
McChrystal is now running around demanding more troops for Afghanistan so he can increase "the number of Afghans shielded from violence."
Yeah, about that:
Check, please.
Warning: The following video contains graphic images.
When the people of an occupied country want foreign troops out while the people of the occupying country want their troops to come home, and the troops remain, something is wrong. Both the American people and the Afghan people want a troop decrease in Afghanistan. Yet this weekend, the President is reviewing a strategic assessment prepared by General Stanley McChrystal widely portrayed as a prelude to a request for an escalation. Should the president approve such a request, he'd be saying, in effect, that to protect democracy in America and to build it in Afghanistan, we must trample it.
Just who is Dr. Roshanak Wardak? She is a member of Afghanistan's parliament--one of 68 women in the lower house--committed to women's rights issues, as well as rebuilding schools and hospitals. Before turning to politics, Dr. Wardak was a gynecologist who practiced for 30 years, during which time she worked with Afghan women in refugee camps in Pakistan. She has witnessed the devastation this war has wrought upon innocent Afghan civilians; she has even experienced it firsthand. Six months ago, a Predator drone bomb landed 200 meters from her house.
As The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reported, "The blast, [Dr. Wardak] says, lifted her house off the ground and woke up the village. The curious went to see what happened. That's when the second drone struck, killing roughly 15 civilians."
We need to hear from experts like Dr. Wardak who understand the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, particularly as our country is sending more troops and more airstrikes, which, as we saw last month, result in rampant civilian deaths that fuel anti-American sentiment. That's why Brave New Foundation brought her to Washington, DC this week for the America's Future Now! conference and to meet with members of Congress.
How did Senators John McCain and and Joe Lieberman spend the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war? Did they apologize for cheerleading the Bush administration's pernicious lies that led our country into and have kept us mired in Iraq? Did they show remorse for a war that took the lives of over 4,000 US soldiers and up to 1 million Iraqi civilians, while costing us $3 trillion when all is said and done? No, instead these Senators brought us the sequel to their twisted buddy comedy, escalating the war in Afghanistan.
In a Washington Post Op-Ed yesterday, McCain and Lieberman urged the Obama administration to go all in after completing its policy review of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The "minimalist" or "reductionist" path would be, in their view, "dangerously and fundamentally wrong, and the president should unambiguously reject it." As with the Iraq war, McCain and Lieberman believe it's in our national interest to win in Afghanistan at all cost, which they even define as establishing "a stable, secure, self-governing Afghanistan that is not a terrorist sanctuary."
How do McCain and his ideological Benedict Arnold of a sidekick propose achieving such a lofty goal? Well, that part they don't get into. No need to be bogged down with the specifics; suffice it to say our country needs a broad counterinsurgency and we need it now! The maximalist approach, which is ironic, considering McCain and Lieberman criticize and fear-monger about those who use "loose rhetoric about a minimal commitment in Afghanistan." The thing is though, and I never ever thought I'd write these words, McCain and Lieberman are absolutely right.
Over the weekend, President Obama confirmed what many Get Afghanistan Right bloggers, myself included, have been saying for months: resolving the war in Afghanistan will require negotiating with elements of the Taliban. 17,000 more troops will be "a drop in the bucket," as Andrew Bacevich has said, if the US doesn't engage in regional diplomacy.
Mr. Obama said on the campaign trail last year that the possibility of breaking away some elements of the Taliban "should be explored," an idea also considered by some military leaders. But now he has started a review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan intended to find a new strategy, and he signaled that reconciliation could emerge as an important initiative, mirroring the strategy used by Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq.
Granted, the Obama administration has acknowledged that it is far more complicated to reach out to moderate Taliban factions than it was to negotiate with nationalist Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq. Yet the fact that the Obama administration is pursuing this diplomatic strategy at all is a step in the right direction to Rethink Afghanistan. As The Nation's Robert Dreyfuss notes in his must-read piece on the Taliban, we should have been talking with them all along.
There is no "end game" strategy for the war in Afghanistan. That is what a military official told President Obama last week, according to an NBC report cited by Think Progress' Faiz Shakir yesterday. In other words, the ultimate outcome for our military presence in Afghanistan is unclear, not just to the activists and bloggers who have been wrestling with this war at Get Afghanistan Right, but to those inside the Pentagon as well. If we have any chance of avoiding further catastrophe in the region, we better make damn sure we Rethink Afghanistan.
That is exactly what Brave New Foundation is calling for in a new campaign launched today. They will hold a series of debates on the issues surrounding this war in the coming weeks, and currently they're asking everyone to sign the petition urging Congressional oversight hearings like those held in 2007 regarding the Iraq war. Vice President Biden, who orchestrated the Iraq hearings as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, said, "No foreign policy can be sustained in this country without the informed consent of the American people." Isn't informed public consent what we need now before committing more troops to Afghanistan?
I'm told we are winning in Iraq. It appears our national victory prize is for violence in Baghdad to return to 2004 levels, coupled with an large occupation force that will last five more years:
About 75% of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now secure, a dramatic increase from 8% a year ago when President Bush ordered more troops to the capital, U.S. military figures show.(…)
The data given by the military to USA TODAY provide one of the clearest snapshots yet of how security has improved in Baghdad since roughly 30,000 additional American troops arrived in Iraq last year.(…)
The 310 neighborhoods in the "control" category are secure, but depend on U.S. and Iraqi military forces to maintain the peace.
If we know the escalation is working because violence levels in Baghdad have been reduced from its peak levels, and if the presence of American troops is required in order to keep violence levels at those somewhat lower rates, then it appears our entire purpose in Iraq, and national reward for winning in Iraq, is to have a large American occupying force in Iraq that maintains 2004 levels of violence in Baghdad.
The reasoning behind the "successful surge" narrative is that less violence in Iraq equals progress in Iraq. So, if the surge worked because violence levels in Baghdad have dropped slightly, then everything that has happened in the Iraq war so far was done in order to reduce the levels of violence in Iraq. And here is what has happened in Iraq so far:
