Eight years of slaughter, and not so much as a hint at what a "victory" would look like. It's gotten to the point where even polls by Fox News show a majority of Americans against escalating the war in Afghanistan, and polls by more honest organizations show a majority wanting to bring home the troops that are there now.
But our so-called representatives in Congress are reluctant to "interfere" with their own primary Constitutional responsibilities, and the so-called executive whom they've given free reign is undecided about whether to listen to us or the military. There's no time like the present to "go out there and make him do it."
The Pakistani disease, if we have to choose one and place it above all others, is not to do what one is qualified to do but to do that which one is not meant to do. The political class has forgotten the art of leading (it dances to the tunes of others). The administrative class is no longer any good at administration. The military have a mixed record in defending the country. But when it comes to seizing power--in other words, stepping out of their lawful domain--their record is unrivalled.
As for their lordships of the higher judiciary, far from being bulwarks of the constitutional order they have been abettors of dictatorship.
The recent Lawyer's Movement is turning out to be a watershed moment in Pakistan's history. It's not been as widely noticed in the US blogs as was the recent Iranian Green movement, but it is quietly transforming the political nature in Pakistan by its middle class influence.
There are a million and one things that people can do to try to end the U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and to prevent new ones in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to close U.S. military bases in dozens of other nations around the world. Certain people are skilled at or interested in particular approaches, and nobody should be discouraged from contributing to the effort in their preferred ways. Far too often proposals to work for peace are needlessly framed as attacks on all strategies except one. But where new energy can be created or existing resources redirected, it is important that they go where most likely to succeed.
Obama's speech in Cairo (transcript) was hailed around the world by virtually everyone, except, as Rachel Maddow noted, for the trogdolite right. So why not have a foreign policy that's actually consistent with its main themes and main thrust, rather than one that continues Bush/Cheney policy with a "kinder, gentler" veneer? In his speech, Obama said:
The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as -- it is as if he has killed all mankind.
Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.
Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven "foreigners" - a term that usually means al-Qaeda - but locals also said that three children lost their lives....
Eight people died when missiles hit a compound near Mir Ali, an al-Qaeda hub in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. Seven more died when hours later two missiles hit a house in Wana, in South Waziristan. Local officials said the target in Wana was a guest house owned by a pro-Taleban tribesman. One said that as well as three children, the tribesman's relatives were killed in the blast.
And he has continued doing this ever since. All based on a false premise (from his Cairo speech):
Now, make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military -- we seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.
And it never will be the case, so long as we are over there killing yet more innocents. At some level, Obama has to realize that. And yet he spouts this utter nonsense, in the midst of an otherwise brilliant and inspiring speech. There has to be a better way.
In President Obama's big speech today, he offered up the following rationale for continued American military presence in Afghanistan (hat-tip: David Mizner in Quick Hits):
Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.
If we are keeping troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan until there are no violent extremists bent on killing Americans, then it is highly likely that we will be keeping a large military presence in the region during the entirety of President Obama's administration. And probably beyond then, too.
Are we really going to root out every last Afghani and Pakistani who wants to kill Americans? The refugee crisis in Pakistan has now displaced over two million people, and the American drone attacks in the region are part of cause. Further, thousands of Afghani civilians have been killed during the war, and it seems unlikely that none of the survivors will become violent extremists determined to kill Americans.
Even if the goal is not to root out all violent extremists, but rather to keep a military presence until such time as local governments can deal with the threat themselves, then we have probably committed ourselves to an operation that will last another decade or more. I find that extremely unsettling, to say the least.
There just doesn't appear to be any exit strategy for Afghanistan, at all. Public opinion still favors a continued American military presence in Afghanistan, but it isn't the overwhelming majority it once was. Also, it is difficult to project if public opinion will hold up during such a long-term commitment. It might, but I wouldn't put money on it. At some point, the majority of the American people will probably want to start reducing our military presence in the region. This could become a major flashpoint for the Obama administration in the years ahead.
That's what Michael Berenbaum asks on WJW this week, and with good reason. As he points out, there have been some "unnamed U.S. government sources suggesting that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the president of the Pakistan Muslim League," should replace Zadari. First off, the pro-fundamentalist Pakistan Muslim League (PML) would give free reign to the Taliban, and secondly, Sharif is fundtamentally owned by Saudi interests.
The article gives background on Sharif:
Sharif has built his entire career on Islamist populism. In 1990, he ran as the candidate for prime minister of the Islamic Democratic Alliance, known as IJI because of its Urdu initials. Sharif became prime minister for the first time after a nasty anti-Bhutto and anti-Western campaign. Here is what the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, which sent observers for that election, had to say about that campaign:
"The most contentious element of the election campaign, and perhaps the most successful from an IJI perspective, was the IJI's strategy of tying Benazir and Nusrat Bhutto to the United States and to the so-called 'Indo-Zionist lobby' in the U.S. The lobby was portrayed as having close ties to India and Israel, and opposing Pakistan's development of a nuclear capability. In particular, the Bhuttos were accused of 'selling-out' Pakistan's nuclear program."
How can someone who described his liberals opponents as agents of the Indo-Zionist lobby be anything but a bigot? How can someone whose party had open rallies across the Punjab with thousands chanting "Death to Solarz, Death to Siegel" (Benazir Bhutto's two closest Jewish friends) be anything but an anti-Semite?
Additionally, both times Sharif served as prime minister, he unsuccessfully tried to impose Sharia law on the nation, introducing Sharia legislation in 1991 and 1998. If he is prime minister again, his alliance with pro-jihadist forces might this time succeed in the Sharia battle for control over Pakistan's legal system, just as fanatics radicalized Iran.
Scary stuff to think that some want this to happen. Whom? Well, think about those that might profit from the chaos for a start.
There may be some in the U.S. intelligence agencies who would rather deal with dictators than democrats. Perhaps the same people would prefer jihadists to moderates. Sharif has demonstrated that he is linked to the most radical fundamentalists in Pakistan, is notoriously anti-Semitic, ihostile to the United States, and indifferent to the war on terrorists and extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The United States has pledged to give $55 per Pakistan refugee caused by the escalated fighting in the region:
With Pakistan facing its worst refugee crisis since partition from India 60 years ago, the US is providing $110 million in emergency assistance for as many as 2 million refugees who have fled fighting in the Swat Valley.
The United States often provides emergency aid in such circumstances, but the sizable assistance announced Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has a particular objective: to ease the hardship of Pakistanis who have been routed from their homes by fighting that the Pakistani military has pursued, at US insistence, against the Taliban.
With the US embarking on a new policy toward Pakistan that aims to defeat the country's extremist elements by winning over the population, the last thing the US needs is to start out even further behind in the battle for hearts and minds. As Secretary Clinton hinted in announcing the aid, the Obama administration wants to encourage the Pakistani people's early signs of cooperation and common purpose against the Taliban.
It should be pretty frakking obvious that what we are going in Pakistan isn't going to make the region more stable, and certainly isn't going to win people over to the cause of the Pakistani and American governments. You don't cause two million people--greater than the population of Philadelphia--to lose their homes, but then think you have made everything better by giving them each $55 (less the cost of distributing the aid).
People in the region don't hate America because of our freedoms, or their religion, or propaganda, any other reason involving culture or the exchange of information. Instead, they hate us because we helped force them, along with their families, out of their homes. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we saw in our own country how much antipathy that sort of thing can generate toward the government. That, as a nation, we believe we can make a super-sized, man-made Hurricane Katrina work as foreign policy is a sign of just how deluded our national consciousness on foreign policy really is.
Last night, Bill Moyers Journal featured a long discussion (transcript here) focused on Pakistan with Juan Cole, and Shahan Mufti. While it had many interesting facets to it, the main thrust cannot be emphasized enough: rumors of Pakistan's death have been greatly exaggerated, and they tell us more about ourselves than about Pakistan. Perhaps one of the most arresting (and obvious, once you think about it) observations made was this:
JUAN COLE: You know, in the past two years, the Pakistani public has demanded an end to a military dictatorship. On the grounds that it was violating the rule of law. They demanded free and fair parliamentary elections. They accomplished them. They voted the largest party they put in is the left of center or centrist secular party. They then went to the streets to demand the reinstatement of the secular civil Supreme Court. And you've had, really, hundreds of thousands of people involved in this movement for the restoration of democracy and the restoration of the rule of law. If this had happened any other place in the world, it would be reported in Washington as a good news story. Here, we've been told that it's a crisis. That it's a sign of instability and nuclear armed nation. I don't understand that.
At the risk of seeming impertinent, I think I understand it perfectly, Juan. They've shown us what a real democracy would look like, and it totally freaks us out.
The fact is, Pakistan has a really lousy political culture, as bad or worse than ours in many ways, and yet the Pakistani people have simply refused to take it lying down. And for that, they are deserving of the absolutely highest respect.
U.S. airstrikes slaughtered 95 Afghan children in the Farah province last week, leaving a total of 140 civilians dead. And yet as Tom Hayden pointed out in The Nation this week, our Democrat-dominated Congress seems unwilling to criticize the Obama administration as it rushes to approve $94.2 billion in supplemental wartime funding. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which has been holding hearings over the past few weeks with U.S., Afghan, and Pakistani military advisers, assessed that the supplemental only "exacerbates" failed strategies by allocating $84 billion to military escalation, leaving $10 billion for foreign aid.
At a time when we're facing soaring unemployment and an economic crisis, it's incredible to me that Congress is so quick to simply go along with Obama on this one, particularly when the run up to the war in Iraq is so fresh in our minds and when we've seen this pattern before from Democratic Presidents. And there are many who share this incredulity.
US airstrikes in Afghanistan like the one that killed over 100 civilians last week have reached all-time destructive highs. According to Air Forces Central, US warplanes dropped a record 438 bombs in Afghanistan during April. The number of dropped bombs has increased steadily over the past few months, and just yesterday, Gen. James Jones claimed the US will continue conducting airstrikes despite President Karzai's admonishment that these bombings are counterproductive, turning Afghan civilians against the United States. Yet as the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to deteriorate, Congress will decide this week whether to approve $94.2 billion in supplemental wartime spending.
Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan like retired Corporal Rick Reyes are meeting with members of Congress early this week, urging them not to approve this massive supplemental wartime funding bill until more critical questions are answered about the war. We still don't know, for instance, how the Obama administration intends to prevent increases in US airstrikes and military presence from becoming recruiting tools for Taliban extremists or al Qaeda terrorists. We still don't know how the administration will be able to stop military escalation from further destabilizing a nuclear-armed Pakistan. Nor has the administration been forthright about benchmarks or an exit strategy, or whether funding more war will hamper US economic recovery.
Here's something everyone in Congress needs to see as they consider President Obama's $83.4 billion supplemental war funding bill. National Priorities Project (NPP) just released The Cost of War in Afghanistan, a report examining the exorbitant human and economic costs of this rapidly expanding war, which estimates the war has currently cost taxpayers over $172 billion. When you factor in the projected costs of long-term military occupation, interest, and veterans' benefits, we're talking about a war that will cost close to $1 trillion. "All told," the report concludes, "this is more than the size of the recent bailout of Wall Street and rivals the historic economic stimulus bill just passed by Congress."
NPP is tracking the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq using an individual cost of war counter, calculating the state-level numbers and trade-offs of supplemental war spending. In my home state of Pennsylvania, for instance, taxpayers will have to pay $2.9 billion of the proposed $83.4 billion tab. Want to know what $2.9 billion could do instead of fund more war? NPP claims it could provide:
725,689 People with Health Care for One Year OR
3,533,713 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR
29,863 Affordable Housing Units OR
460,546 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR
46,575 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
The list goes on and on. The fact is not nearly enough members of Congress are seriously considering the cost and impact of more troops, both in the U.S. and Afghanistan. According to NPP Executive Director Jo Comerford, "The purpose of this resource is to help people across the United States reflect on the current Afghanistan war and its proposed expansion."
Is the United States going to invade Pakistan? Directly or indirectly. There have been stories for sometime about U.S. special forces already being inside many countries in the region. But Pakistan seems to be a particular focus of the Obama administration. People make much of the fact that the President learned to say the country's name properly -- Pah-kee-stan -- but nobody's bothered to ask why. Is it because the U.S. has it next on the list of countries that we will invade seeking the rose-petal path? Or maybe break it up into pieces, hand them out to neighboring countries who are either our friends or our colonies, keep everything away from any possible claims by China?
The people who started the movements towards the New American Empire -- called PNAC, Project for a New American Century -- don't really disappear just because "their" guy loses an election. Their goals remain the same. And remember, most of the money from this country has been stolen by their members -- the wealthy elite, the oil, the defense, the Wall Street criminals who have looted and pillaged during the Bush years. They've got the money, they bribe our politicians, they can pretty much get whatever they want.
So here's the question: since President Obama campaigned to end the war in Iraq, why doesn't he do it? We have 142,000 U.S. military personnel occupying Iraq right now, and an additional -- 100,000? --- private contractor mercenaries. That's 250,000 people occupying a foreign country. Let's get them out of there. But Obama says no, let's wait a year, and even then we'll leave 50,000 troops. To "help." That's ridiculous. The only thing the U.S. has done in Iraq is to kill and destroy, and teach others to do the same. Nothing is going to be resolved as long as we continue to militarily occupy that country. We need to get out. Now. Out Now.
But then we get the surprise news. Yes, Obama wants to "end" the war in Iraq by reducing forces to 50,000 -- which doesn't sound like an end to me, more a pause -- but he wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan. But why? What's there except rubble and poor people? What is our purpose or goal in being in Afghanistan? Except to have a staging ground to attack Pakistan. No, they won't call it an attack -- they'll say we're just sending some advisors in to help prop up the puppet government. Is that really why we are escalating in Afghanistan? To set up the staging ground for the next U.S. war?
There is a major battle taking place right now in Pakistan between the official government and the "militants" we call the Taliban. It should not be surprising that the Taliban would have popular support and strength in Pakistan. The Pakistan government and its state police, the ISI, has reportedly been big supporters of the Taliban for years. The country was a home-base for the al-Queda efforts in the region, with many of the top level people in the government being sympathizers with al-Queda (just like the royal family in Saudi Arabia provided their funding). Remember, they popularized the religious-fanatic schools that brainwashed the children and turned them out to become little suicide bombers of the future. Why would anyone be surprised that Pakistan is overrun with fanatics? We've been funding them for years -- they're our "friend." Just like with bin Laden, we have funded our future enemies.
This may seem abhorant to us - who could support the Taliban, never mind al Queda? Here's the answer: people support the local team. When the Yankees come to town to play against the team with the smallest payroll, youngest and most inexperienced players, oldest ballfield, who do the home-town fans support? The local team, no matter what the odds are against them. They don't like outsiders coming in and trying to take over. Same thing.
The United States has been a physical presence in the area since sometime after Israel was set up, since our arming of Israel and ongoing obscene levels of funding of Israel, our non-negotiable support for Israel's genocide against the Palestinians, and whatever else they do, has made it clear to a majority of the people in the region that the U.S. is only there to support a western, European-style colony of the region with the non-whites and Muslims acting the part of slaves, and the U.S. and Israel acting the part of brutal colonial forces. They do hate us, but it's not for our freedoms -- it's for our decades of brutal colonial assault on their countries and their lives.
I can see this whole thing playing out to one end: U.S. war in Pakistan. Not to get al Queda - I'm beginning to think nobody really cares about al Queda - just to get control. The elusive goal, the never-ending war: just until it's stabilized, even if we have to kill every single person in that country. Obama's position since he got into the White House has been a direct aim at Pakistan. I don't love Pakistan, don't get me wrong. But we have no business in Pakistan other than if we know bin Laden is there, let's go in and kill him. Other than that, stay out. U.S. Out of Pakistan.
Come to think of it, remember the oil pipeline? Way back in 2001, the U.S. made demands in Afghanistan to let western oil companies build a pipeline through their country? Because we want our corporations to steal all the oil from the region, carry it overland by pipeline, dump it into tankers, and have them bring it to California to fuel the Hummers. What was that campaign called? "Save the Hummers." As I recall, that pipeline was also supposed to go through Pakistan. Hmmm.
The AP article (link and partial quotes below) say that the Obama administration's position is that the U.S. cannot "win" in Afghanistan without peace and support, an alliance with Pakistan, that Obama is pushing the Pakistan government to engage in military battles with the Taliban, that the Obama government is claiming that the bad guys are now coming from Pakistan (I thought they were coming from Iran -- they keep changing the story). Oh My God, the U.S. is going to start another war. I can smell it.
Remember, Joe Biden wanted to break up Iraq into segments, give control of each segment to some friendly regime. Do they have the same thing in mind for Pakistan? Break it up, turn over control of segments to U.S.-aligned nations, have "treaties" which give us control of all their resources? Prevent China from gaining control in Pakistan? Remember, Pakistan's longest border may be with India, but they also have a border with China.
We will not "win" the countries in that region through military means. We can kill all the people, enslave the population, and keep an unstable puppet regime in place for short periods of time. But in the long run, we cannot "win." Not by bombs or guns.
Think of all the things we could have done that would have been good. Let's start with the Palestinians. Tell Israel to get out of the settlements and return to some borders (pick one -- any one). Rebuild everything for the Palestinians. Employ the people. Build housing, give them jobs, build schools, hospitals. Bring their brightest students to the U.S. for immediate professional education such as doctors, lawyers, CPAs, engineers, but at the same time build professional-level universities in their own country where they can turn out all the top-level people they need to run their new nation. Provide the funding. Build transportation and roads. If we had done that, and the Palestinians had gone from being the poorest victims of western colonial greed to becoming a new nation of opportunity where all the people have housing, food, clothing, medical, education, think how different things might have been. And at probably a fraction of what it costs for any of these wars.
We can win by showing people that there are better ways, better opportunities, that it's possible for countries to meet the needs of their people. Instead we bomb, murder, destroy. And this is what we have: war, neverending war. And a new one on the horizon.
While the citizens at home wait for help, our government is engaged in on-going wars against other countries with no benefit to us. We get nothing. The corporations get control of the resources. The citizens of those countries get killed or maimed. These are corporate wars, and we need to end them.
When the French were trying to keep control, keep their colonial ownership of Vietnam, the U.S. gradually moved in to aid in that effort, very early on funding 80% of the war against the Vietnamese. Then we sent in "advisors," then "special" forces, then the whole military. The French got their butts kicked at a battle in a place called Dien Ben Phu. Remember that song: Waterloo, Waterloo, when will you meet your Waterloo? The moment of reckoning. How many wars will it take until our creditors cut us off and our military limps home?
The federal government under the control of Bush and Cheney bankrupt our country and created devastation throughout the world. So far, President Obama has done nothing but spread a thin veneer of calm over what is otherwise a nation in a disaster, headed for collapse. Future generations of this country will pay by inheriting crushing debt, an economy which has few jobs, no manufacturing, no ability to make anything, no ability to grow our own food, no money, no capital, no public infrastructure, no schools or roads or transportation, no healthcare for the people, no adequate police or fire protection. Just like in Third World Countries -- nothing for the people, everything for the rulers.
U.S. Out of Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. End the Wars. Bring the Troops Home.
AP: "MINGORA, Pakistan - Helicopter gunships and mortar teams pounded militant strongholds, killing dozens outside emerald mines and in a district near the capital, the military said, as Taliban reinforcements poured down from their mountain hideouts."
"As the army began taking the fight to militants entrenched about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, Pakistan's leader prepared to hear demands from President Barack Obama for forceful action from a struggling ally. "
"The army actions in the Swat Valley and Buner will please Washington, which is urging Pakistan to crack down on militants blamed for rising violence at home and in Afghanistan.
Since fighting broke out Tuesday, thousands of men, women and children have fled the region's main town of Mingora and surrounding districts, fearing an imminent major military operation. The government said it believes refugees could reach 500,000. "
"'It is an all-out war there. Rockets are landing everywhere,' said Laiq Zada, a 33-year old who fled the valley late Tuesday and was now in a government-run tent camp out of the danger zone. 'We have with us the clothes on our bodies and a hope in the house of God. Nothing else.'"
"The clashes followed the collapse of a 3-month-old truce in Swat that was widely criticized in the West as a surrender to the militants, who had fought the army to a standstill in two years of clashes that saw hundreds of civilian casualties. "
"The developments brought Islamabad's faltering campaign against extremism into sharp focus as President Asif Ali Zardari prepared for talks Wednesday in Washington with Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on how best to counter an increasingly overlapping spectrum of extremist groups behind surging violence in the neighboring countries."
"The Obama administration hopes to build a strong and lasting regional alliance, linking success in Afghanistan with security in Pakistan. Toward that end, the administration is encouraging Pakistan to confront - not make peace with - the Taliban and other militants.
'We need to put the most heavy possible pressure on our friends in Pakistan to join us in the fight against the Taliban and its allies,' Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told a congressional committee Tuesday. 'We cannot succeed in Afghanistan without Pakistan's support and involvement.'"
Friends, as you know I have raised the issue of strike drone use by the U.S. in Pakistan on a few occasions. I am currently working on this issue, and a few others, with Avaaz. Please find below a joint entry with my new Avaaz colleague and friend Brett Solomon. Cheers, Raj
With daily news reports suggesting that the democratically elected government of Pakistan is struggling to contain militancy within its borders, Americans and Pakistanis alike are waiting to see how the new U.S. policy, outlined in late March by President Obama, impacts the crisis.
There is a feeling that sustained U.S. and international focus is needed because the militant groups that grew so rapidly under the military government of General Musharraf are threatening the internal security of nuclear-armed Pakistan. This instability is also harming efforts to bring peace and security to bordering Afghanistan.
The situation in Pakistan is deteriorating by the hour. This nuclear-armed nation already plagued by political and economic turmoil now faces a massive humanitarian crisis, as 500,000 people flee the Swat valley in the face of armed conflict between Pakistani authorities and Taliban extremists who have taken control. As President Obama prepares to meet with Pakistani President Asif Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai tomorrow, the question becomes what the U.S. can do to prevent all-out war in Pakistan.
An article in The New York Times today presents three potential strategies for the Obama administration to pursue in the coming weeks: 1) hasten the long-term strategy of retraining the Pakistani army to fight the counterinsurgency while upping nation-building efforts; 2) rely on more Predator drone strikes and covert ground attacks; and 3) make sure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure from the extremist threat. While it's clear the Obama administration has its back against the wall, authorizing more Predator drone attacks is a disastrous option that must be avoided at all cost.
As David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency expert who designed Gen. Petraeus's Iraqi surge, recently told the House Armed Services Committee, "We need to call off the drones." This covert plan, first approved by Bush (and continued by Obama) to skirt Pakistan's refusal to allow U.S. troops into the country, uses unmanned aircraft remotely controlled by the CIA to hunt down suspected terrorists and insurgents. But as Kilcullen claimed, it's backfiring, prompting more Taliban extremists to take up arms against the U.S.-backed Pakistani government and driving them deeper into the country.
This past week I covered the bold testimony of Ret. Cpl. Rick Reyes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drawing the comparison between Reyes's anti-war testimony and a young John Kerry alerting the nation to the horrors of the Vietnam War 38 years ago. I certainly wasn't the only one to connect the dots between Vietnam and the current quagmire in Afghanistan, as you can see from this video with excerpts of Andrew Bacevich's testimony.
Bacevich, a retired Colonel who served in Vietnam and is now professor of International Relations and History at Boston University, has become one of the most vocal critics of the "Long War," as Defense Secretary Robert Gates dubbed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paraphrasing General Bruce Palmer's account of the Vietnam War, Bacevich said that our country is once again "mired in a protracted war of an indeterminate nature, with no foreseeable end to the US commitment."
The Long War, as Bacevich exclaimed, has become the second most expensive war in US history (second only to WWII). Now that we our facing trillions in debt, Bacevich urged Congress to question the reasons for escalation in Afghanistan. "We just urgently need to ask ourselves whether or not the purposes of the long war are achievable, necessary, and affordable," Bacevich claimed, "and Afghanistan is a subset of that longer set of questions." Congress needs to address questions of cost before they vote on President Obama's $83 billion war funding bill in the coming weeks. And the most direct way to follow Bacevich's lead and confront Congress is by calling your Representatives as soon as possible, urging them not to vote until we have more oversight hearings like these, and more questions answered.
Pepe Escobar: . . . the success rate of the Barack Obama administration's "hell from above" Predator drone war over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is a mere 6%. Of "60 Predator strikes between January 14, 2006, and April 8, 2009, only 10 hit their targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders" but most of all "killing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians".
In the United States, anyone who advocates economic justice is immediately accused of fomenting class warfare, and relegated to the same slag-heap of history as Lenin, Pol Pot, and Mao, and the New York Times is currently reinforcing this meme with a typical headline...
"Taliban Exploit Class Rifts to Gain Ground in Pakistan."
But the Times is still the Times, and only slightly buried in the story of divisive Taliban class-warriors there are also a few odd facts which help explain why "exploiting class rifts" has been an effective strategy in the Swat Valley, which the central government of Pakistan has recently conceded to the control of Islamic fundamentalists.
1,300,000 people live in the Swat Valley. 50 landlords own it.
Unlike India after independence in 1947, Pakistan maintained a narrow landed upper class that kept its vast holdings while its workers remained subservient, the officials and analysts said. Successive Pakistani governments have since failed to provide land reform and even the most basic forms of education and health care. Avenues to advancement for the vast majority of rural poor do not exist.
Today Pakistan "remains largely feudal," in the compact language of the Times, and although Islamic fundamentalism is usually pilloried in the Western press as a reactionary movement devoted to imposing medieval religion on "modern" societies, if the Taliban fulfill their promises to redistribute land in the Swat Valley, they can also claim to be the most progressive economic force in South Asia.
For those of you who had to cut checks and wait in long lines at the Post Office yesterday, here's a stat to darken your already gloomy week. According to the National Priorities Project (NPP), 37.3 cents of every tax dollar went toward military spending last year. NPP has a site set up where you can actually see the breakdown of where your tax dollars went in 2008, based on your city and county info. For instance, in Philly where I live, the median income family paid $1,958 in federal income taxes last year. Of that, $576 went to military spending and another $155 went to military interest on debt, while education received a paltry $59 and environment, energy and science combined got just $55. Why are these numbers so skewed?
Thankfully, the Obama administration has called for substantial investment in woefully underfunded areas like education, healthcare reform, and renewable energy. And investing in renewable energy will translate into more jobs, even though the NPP notes that 30 percent of military spending currently goes toward securing fossil fuels. Here's the thing though, if our country is simultaneously escalating the war in Afghanistan, calling for a long-term military commitment, how can they possibly deliver on their economic agenda?
"Can more be done to create more of a coalition so that the U.S. isn't burdened with bearing the cost in lives and treasure alone?"
"Since over half of the citizens of Afghanistan are female, shouldn't we ask them what kind of help they want from us, if any?"
"What would happen if we pulled out military troops and replaced them with agricultural experts, economic development experts, Peace Corps volunteers, medical corps, and specialists to help in development of strong governmental structures and other "helpers" to help Afghans obtain an improved quality of life?"
"Why don't we try diplomatic negotiation with all involved parties, including The Taliban FIRST?"
These are some of the questions we all should be asking right now about the war in Afghanistan. They are a sampling from over 460 viewer-submitted questions Brave New Foundation received for their upcoming series of three debates between Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress and The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel. Clearly, people are starting to see that regardless of whether you oppose the war in Afghanistan, substantive debates from experts on both sides of the issues would benefit everyone. That's why Korb, who favors more troops and resources, will go head-to-head with vanden Heuvel, who calls for regional diplomacy and military withdrawal. They will debate whether military escalation is the best method to combat terrorism, and the effect more troops will have on an already unstable Pakistan; Korb and vanden Heuvel will agree upon a third topic chosen from the hundreds of submitted questions like the ones above.
Though this war continues to intensify, we still don't know the answers to some of the most basic questions, which is why the ultimate goal of Rethink Afghanistan and debates like these is an educational one. Raising public awareness and fostering discussion will prompt Congress to hold substantive oversight hearings that bring in experts to explain policy and offer answers.
Every single aspect of the war in Afghanistan must be opened up to debate, especially considering the fact that over 172 billion of our tax dollars have gone to this war to date. That means we should be talking about the staggering costs, about exit strategy, about the rights of Afghan women, and whether diplomacy can win over hearts and minds. And we should be ranking the importance of these issues for Congress, which you can now do with this new voting tool where you also can submit your own written questions.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlights the point around which peace and stability hinge in South Asia: Pakistan. The threat of the Taliban and Al Queda using Afghanistan as a refuge and launching points for attacks against the United States is governed primarily by what happens in Pakistan.
Holbrooke is known for his directness, and this quote from the Wall Street Journal article sums things up nicely "If Afghanistan had the best government on earth, a drug-free culture and no corruption it would still be unstable if the situation in Pakistan remained as today. That is an undisputable fact, and that is the core of the dilemma that the Western nations, the NATO alliance, face today."
Indeed.
Money, information, equipment - all these flow through Pakistan to Afghanistan. Without a secure Pakistan, Afghanistan cannot achieve peace and stability, no matter how many or how few troops NATO decides to deploy.
Pakistan faces many challenges related to security and stability, and the pledge by President Obama to increase aid to Pakistan is a good start. Another hopeful sign was the averting of destructive political conflict between President Zardari and Nawaz Sharif recently. Thankfully, Holbrooke is an experienced diplomatic operator who understands Pakistan's difficult situation. He fully understands Pakistan's "red-line" view of U.S. troops operating on Pakistani soil. Strikes by unmanned drones are hard enough to swallow, but boots-on-the-ground might spark a conflict that could not easily be contained.
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