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Time To Face The Facts On Afghanistan
- Text size
Eric S. Margolis
Information Clearing House
October 9, 2008
For those who savor historical irony, the Soviet Empire collapsed in the years 1989-1991 because of an implosion of its economy brought on by a ruinous arms race with the United States and the heavy costs of occupying Afghanistan.
Seventeen years later came the turn of the world’s other great imperial power, the United States. Lethally bloated by runaway debt, and burdened by 50% of the world’s military spending, the house of cards known as the US economy finally collapsed.
The doomsday news from New York and Washington has obscured most other world affairs. This is unfortunate because for the first time there is a flicker – and I mean only a flicker – of light at the end of the Afghanistan tunnel. It may only be an oncoming truck bomb.
The US-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, revealed last week he had asked Saudi Arabia to broker peace talks with the alliance of tribal and political groups resisting Western occupation collectively known as Taliban. Saudi Arabia had been one of the few nations to recognize the Taliban government and retains considerable influence in Afghanistan and remains a loyal friend of Pakistan.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar quickly rejected Karzai’s offer, and claimed the US was heading toward the same kind of catastrophic defeat in Afghanistan that the Soviet Union had met. The ongoing financial panic in North America lent substance to his words.
The US economy is in grave peril and its big three automakers may soon face bankruptcy. In a crazy sidebar, as Wall Street and the Us banking system faced meltdown, the insouciant Pentagon just announced it would spend $300 million with American `contractors’ to spread pro-US propaganda in Iraq. This remarkable idiocy notwithstanding, Washington could soon run out of money necessary to keep paying for operations in Iraq, and bribing Pakistan with $250-300 million a month to wage war against its own rebellious Pashtun tribes people along the Afghanistan border.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The able and forthright US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, urgently called for at least 10,000 more troops. US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are increasingly on the defensive, hard pressed to defend vulnerable supply lines in spite of massive fire power and total control of the air.
Attacks on US and NATO convoys are even beginning at the port of Karachi. The prospect of the US spreading a war it can’t win in Afghanistan into Pakistan is military and political madness.
Startlingly, Gen. McKiernan appeared to break with Bush administration policy by proposing political talks with Taliban and admitting the war had to be ended by diplomacy. The military men know this war cannot be won on the battlefield. McKiernan’s predecessor told Congress that 400,000 US troops would be needed to pacify Afghanistan. There are currently 80,000 western troops in Afghanistan, many of them unwilling to enter combat.
By sharp contrast, I recently asked Karl Rove, President Bush’s former senior advisor, how the US could ever hope to win the war in Afghanistan. His eyes dancing with imperial hubris, Rove brightly replied, `More Predators(missile armed drones) and helicopters! Then we’ll go into Pakistan.’
Which reminded me of poet Hilaire Beloc’s wonderful line about 19th century British imperialism that I use in my new book, `American Raj:’ `Whatever happens/we have got/the Maxim gun* /and they have not.’
*Maxim gun – early machine gun
Though Karzai’s olive branch was rejected, the fact he made it public is very important. By doing so, both he and Gen. McKiernan broke the simple-minded Western taboo against negotiations with Taliban and its allies.
Let us remember that Taliban is not a `terrorist movement,’ as claimed by western war propaganda, but was founded as an Islamic religious movement dedicated to fighting Communism and the drug trade.
Taliban received US funding until May, 2001. In fact, CIA keep close contacts with Taliban, many of whose members were US-backed mujahidin from the anti-Soviet war of the 1980’s, for possible future use against the Communist regimes of Central Asia and against China. The 9/11 attacks made CIA immediately cut its links to Taliban and burn the associated files.
In recent years, Western war propaganda has so demonized Taliban that few politicians have the courage to propose the obvious and inevitable: a negotiated settlement to this pointless seven-year war. A noteworthy exception came last April when NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who admitted the war could only be ended by negotiations, not military means.
The Karzai government cannot extend its authority beyond Kabul because that would mean overthrowing the very same Uzbek and Tajik drug-dealing warlords and Communists chiefs that are its base of power. There is no real Afghan national army, just a bunch of unenthusiastic mercenaries who pretend to fight.
The current war in Afghanistan is not really about al-Qaida and `terrorism,’ but about opening a secure corridor through Pashtun tribal territory to export the oil and gas riches of the Caspian Basin of Central Asia to the West. The US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are essentially pipeline protection troops fighting off the hostile natives..
Both Barack Obama and John McCain are wrong about Afghanistan. It is not a `good’ fight against `terrorism,’ but a classic, 19th century colonial war to advance western geopolitical power into resource-rich Central Asia. The Pashtun Afghans who live there are ready to fight for another 100 years. The western powers certainly are not.
As that great American founding father Benjamin Franklin said, `there is no good war, and no bad peace.’ Time for the West to face reality in Afghanistan.
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October 9th, 2008 at 11:45 am
There are many bad “peaces.” Like the one we have now with our own government. However, Franklin again can be quoted in this regard when he said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
I don’t agree with Islam, but I certainly don’t agree with imperialism. Especially when it’s for the UN and not the US.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
What a grand victory Afghanistan has been. Helmund province has had an exponential growth in Opium production. Surprise. It is ripe for CIA/MI6 picking. The country is about as stable as it is ever going to be. Chevron Karzai is still stuck to living inside his compound. Marginal improvement have been made in the rights of women. The CIA created Taliban are on the borders and in Waziristan ready to come on back in. Note to Dick Cheney: The Pipeline, the pipeline. Aw well shucks. That James Bond flik The World is Not Enough is all anyone needs to see to get an idea of a game plan.
How very tragic for all those civilians and military who died in the name of a bogus pipeline war. I loathe the Taliban, however, the whole situation is not military controllable, nor winnable.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Good article, thanks.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I feel sorry for the troops…… working their butts off to acheive these PNAC wars…… and what is their reward. They will be coming back to economic misery…. and I bet they will really looking forward to being dployed in their own streets…. what a moral boost that will be! The NEOCONS might suffer the same fate as Sadam?
October 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
We are not perfect but if this story is true then what are we suppose to do now? For the first time in my life I am losing sleep because of what is going in the world today that involves our country. Maybe I should have woken up years ago and open my eyes to see and realize that todays world is forever changing.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Get this out and pass it around. All you teens out there need to go into your computer room and change the home page to infowars or your states We are change ANYTHING as long as we can wake up the teens or teachers. Im in high school and it works iv had people ask me for some more info burn some DVDs pass um out wake up as many people as possible this is where the real war starts in the mind of those who will become our future.
Kabuse- Go for what you strive for and if you fail your not working as hard as you should be.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I am tired of these neo cons trying to stop our truth seeking. We should go to their websites like 911myths.com and wtc7lies.googlepages.com and see their lies and tell others about them. WE ARE FREEDOM FIGHTERS LETS GO TO THEIR WEBSITES AND EXPOSE THE TRUTH.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I still wonder why this comes as a surprise to anyone, were talking recent history here….if anyone knows anything it should at least be recent history, and no the 1980’s are not that difficult to research. As such this peice is no news to anyone who lived through the Russian-Afghan war. That is to say, we who are awake, and who were awake at the time, have predicted this outcome for sometime. Afghanistan can not be conquered, as so many would-be conquers have proven. That we tried is an indication of either our leaderships total megalomania or insanity (fearfully perhaps both apply).
I suggest if you actually need the history lesson you seek out that odd thirty or forty-something out there and get there take on Russia’s mistake and how we stupidly followed there example. Ask some probing questions before you get to the meat of the discussion, they may not still be awake.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The War-Terror Cabalitarian model never ends…not by design. Psychopathy coldly cuts losses. It initiates patriotic sacrifices through the global network of phonies selected by Them to stand in ostensive elections. All you get by voting is more of the same. Phony “leaders” rehearsing the verbiage to convince the saps that reform is possible under the same flock of vultures who privately rule the world. Its hard not to get discouraged by the prospect of personal physical deprivation and of regret that it had to come down to this. To overpopulation leading inexorably to the endless imperial monarchy. Utopia Am Us.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
They took afghanistan because the taliban said no the oil pipe line that they wanted to run through the country from russia to s.e. asia. They also wanted the poppy feilds that the taliban wouldn’t give them. The taliban hated heroin and would cut your head off if you got caught with it. Now, the heroin world wide is up since we got there. Theres been so many wars fought over the heroin trade its rediculous. China, vietnam, afghanistan, just to name three.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Maybe it’s time now to find out what realy is going on in Afghanistan?
The first Afghan War (1838–1842)
The second Afghan War (1878–1880)
The third Afghan War ended (1919)
The fourth Afghan War (1979–1989) Russia
The fifth Afghan War (1998-present time) America
Exportpartners (2006): India 22,8%, Pakistan 21,8%, US 15,2%, UK 6,5%, Finland 4,4%
In fact Afghanistan has been in a civil war at least from 1978.
Can you imagine living in a country being always involved in some kinda war for 30 years.
I looked at some very old National Geographic black& white pictures from Afghanistan it still looks the same today!
It is hard to imagine today that once Afghanistan the mane trading crossroad for many great civilisations.
But being that crossroad unfortunately means also the crossroad of greed and death and that hasn’t changed today either.
Going into Afghanistan it is like Ollie saying to Stan “Look what other Fine Mess you’ve gotten us us into now”
October 11th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Thank you all for your comments, and thank you, Alex and friends, for running this piece. The quote attributed to Mr. Rove about the use of “predator” remote-controlled aircraft that are used to fire missiles into crowds of people simply because “suspected terrorists” may be in their midst is very revealing of the mind-set of many folks, unfortunately — their world is just so full of “bad guys” (and who exactly are these ‘bad guys’? we ask, and exactly how did they become such ‘bad guys’? – who did they disagree with that caused them to be branded as ‘bad guys’?) that it is “okay” to commit war crimes and mass murder – and when these crimes have been done, and when our very own humanity has been sacrificed and has perished, many of us honestly wonder exactly how do we ever achieve “victory”? Our desire is not for “victory” at any cost, “victory” at the cost of our own humanity and our own souls, “victory” at the cost of national financial bankruptcy (we are right there, my friends – the dollar is cursed blood money that has been made utterly worthless) – instead, our desire is for redemption, and the regeneration of the human race that this can bring. Our prayer is this: We desire to be Holy, even as Creator God is Holy – We desire to be Pure, even as God’s Spirit is Pure – We desire to be Righteous, even as the Holy Man, Jesus Christ, was Righteous. There is divine power in this prayer that the evil cannot defeat!
October 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
The Taliban could just be the black flag army that emerges from Khurasan, a prophecy made by the Prophet Muhammad of Islam. Khurasan in those days is what is Afghanistan today. When the army emerges victorious, the awaited Mahdi will arrive who will lead a global revolution against the Anti-Christ, and with the help of Jesus, who will descend when the Mahdi reaches Damascus, will defeat the Anti-Christ and establish peace and security on earth just as it had been filled with injustice and tyranny before that. God Willing!!
October 11th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Lies from elected officials should be actionable by immediate removal from office, as a violation of the oath of office.
It is time for the states to be discussing secession from the corrupt institution doing business as the us federal government, and should be discussing contingency plans to start a new government that does not lie to the “we the people” that they are supposed to serve.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
We MUST do something about this!! We CANNOT be passive about this otherwise the New World Order WILL happen!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAcxGD6-c-E
Inform as many as you can!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THEIR MICROCHIP ENSLAVEMENT PLAN!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE “PATRIOT ACT”!!!
BE AWARE OF HOW THE MEDIA TRIES TO MISLEAD YOU!!
October 13th, 2008 at 9:57 am
This war is outrageous. The propaganda about it in my country makes my blood boil that these politicians can so callously lie to the public and cover up the facts. Not only that but the media is locked in with the NWO central media dissemination groups that exist to sow propaganda in each of our democracies.