Afghanistan: The Principles of Defeat
by Anwaar Hussain via gan 2010-10-19 20:25:46

America’s exit from Afghanistan is around the corner. Anyone with his ear to the ground and an eye cocked on the horizon can tell as much. As American military philosophers will be averse to identify the causes of the rout for some time yet, this scribe helps them in advance.

For any foreign venture to be successful, be it military or otherwise, one must have a clearly defined national purpose that has a policy from which flows a mission with an aim. One then draws up an action plan which is implemented to achieve that aim. That’s how it should work.

George Bush started out in reverse order in Afghanistan. He embarked upon a pre-planned action plan in response to 9/11, which became a mission with the hazy aim of destroying 'al-Qaeda,' which in turn became the 'permanent Global War on Terror,' which has yet to gain traction with the international community.

Come Obama the war on the noun 'terror,' had turned into a full blown national purpose.

By the time Bush rifled through the Afghan body politic, having initially entered through the bullet sized hole of his misdirected action, all he succeeded in doing was to turn Afghanistan into a wasteland of missed opportunities by creating a counterinsurgency beast which fuels an ongoing Afghan resistance -- roaring full throated in its farthest reaches today.

Not only that, Pakistan, America’s reluctant ally next door, yoked by the dead weight of third rate leadership, lurches from crisis to crisis in the debris, as if choosing the right spot to fall.

In the nine long years Americans have been in Afghanistan, they have committed enormous crimes, spilled rivers of innocent Afghani blood and shed quite a bit of their own. Now after many years down a misguided war path, the Americans have slowly realized that the Taliban have imperceptibly replaced the original enemy i.e. al-Qaeda. And that this enemy, with makeshift bombs, rusty Kalashnikovs and often faulty grenade launchers, comes waves upon waves at them caring naught for their lives.

Unable to beat this new foe, enthralled by their tenacity, dazzled by their willingness to die for their cause, the Americans have now begun to ask, are they really our enemies, in the sense that al-Qaeda was? Is this really what we had initially set out to do?

For the luckless puppet Obama the biggest problem in succeeding a nincompoop Bush is that he has inherited one of the worst economic and national security nightmares of any President in American history.

He started out in a huge deficit. In Afghanistan he began in a milieu in which the Pashtun Afghans, the alma mater of the Taliban, who view the Americans as invaders and occupiers. Not only that, Obama finds America encumbered with reluctant NATO allies that are increasingly indisposed to continue as members of the war party. The Taliban on the other hand, rather than diminishing, are actually multiplying in numbers. Long cues of applicants are lining up to join the ‘Jihad against the infidels’.

So empowering is their ideology that they are willing to take up primitive arms and fight against the most powerful military in history knowing well the odds against them. Add to this the increasing radicalization that the Afghan and Iraq jaunts have sprung upon the Muslim world and the consequent insecurity of the American people, which has no parallel in history, one begins to form up a picture of DEFEAT in Afghanistan.

China and Russia, too are slowly beginning to look at the fracas next door as their legitimate concern is only the icing on the cake.

A real Afghan army and police force remain a Western fantasy, locals view these opportunists as the criminals they are. The few of them that can be called somewhat regular troops or police are not willing to die for the thoroughly corrupt and criminal 'government' of Hamid Karzai. It is no wonder Americans are finally fed up with having to either go into battle alone or to watch over their shoulders to see if the Afghan officials with them are going to desert them or shoot them in the back. That can be a really draining exercise.

Added to this is the constant nerve shattering effect of battle fatigue, which is compensated for with amphetamines -- which of course compounds the problem and leads to permanent psychosis and the highest soldier 'burn out' rate in modern military history! American soldiers have now begun to ask how many of them should die for the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai?

Perhaps a hushed realization seems to have finally sunk into the thick American head that they cannot make an Afghan think like an American, want like an American and live like an American.

We remember that at the peak of Soviet occupation, there were 140,000 Russian troops, 300, 000 Afghan troops with tanks, helicopters and weapons to boot and tens of thousands of civilian advisers in the country that spoke all the tribal dialects. The Russians built hundreds of clinics, schools, factories, roads and bridges. But in the end they lost. They lost for the single overriding reason that the Soviets failed to make the Afghan people want what the Soviets wanted them to want.

Before them the British too had had similar experiences. As a matter of fact, every foreign invader -- including Alexander the 'Great' -- over the centuries has lost in Afghanistan. Why should the Americans be an exception? You cannot, after all, build a nation out of unwilling disparate tribes and give them institutions they do not want.

Unheeded though it was, long ago, when the Americans had initially invaded Afghanistan, this scribe had this to say to them. “Afghanistan is a land of mountains, ferocious warriors, uncompromising Islam, vicious tribal rivalries and a political complexity that entwines bloodlines, chivalry, religion and history into a mix as unfathomable to the outsider today as it has ever been.

In the early 19th century it was a land of great mystery, at the dawn of twenty-first it remains only more so. It should have been left alone to find its own natural equilibrium.” And that, “though their loyalty to Islam is fierce, but Pashtun culture often seems to supersede Islamic orthodoxy. The rise and fall of Taliban is but one brief twist of history in this rugged part of the world.

Taliban or no Taliban, resisting foreign occupation of their lands is a way of life for them. After the exit of the Soviets from Afghanistan, the Taliban phenomenon could hold their interest for only as long. If there were no foreign occupiers soon enough, the Pashtuns would have had to invent some to go on with their way of life. Their tussle with the Northern Alliance was nothing but a poor substitute of this fact. The Americans should have known.”

This fact will be reinforced when the Americans do finally leave Afghanistan. Before long the world will see these same Afghan tribes getting down to their old ways of internal blood letting and living happily thereafter. They will only change when they decide to change and not a day before that.

Perhaps by far the biggest single mistake the Americans have made in Afghanistan can be summed up in what Ralph Peters recently said, “why did we go to Afghanistan in 2001? Because of al-Qaeda. To punish them, to smash them, and to punish those who harbored them. Afghanistan was a low-budget terrorist motel. So the feds raid the motel, kill some of the bad guys, capture some, and others escape. And instead of going after the ones who escaped, we decided to renovate the motel.”

Now as the empire slinks back, perhaps its soldiers will take along some snapshots of the ruins in their duffel bags as mementos of their stay in Motel Kandahar.

[Edited.]

Author retains copyright.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26631.htm

Oz MPs blast Afghan troop deployment
by Emma Rodgers via stele 2010-10-20 05:44:43

Crossbench MPs have spoken out in Parliament against Australia's commitment to the Afghanistan war, calling for troops to be brought home immediately.

Debate on the conflict began in Parliament yesterday with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott voicing their bipartisan support for continued involvement in the war-torn country.

But Greens MP Adam Bandt and independent MP Andrew Wilkie have slammed Australia's continued troop deployment as unjustifiable, dangerous and wrong.

Mr Bandt says efforts to train local forces have not been as successful as the Government says.

"I know many Australians ask the legitimate question: what will happen to the population if we pull out? But there's an alternative question - is us being there making the problem worse?" he said.

Mr Bandt will introduce a bill which would require future deployments to be approved by both houses of Parliament.

Ms Gillard warned yesterday that Australia will be involved in Afghanistan for at least the rest of this decade but Mr Bandt said this was not acceptable.

"If coalition troops are there for another decade, a whole generation of boys and girls will have grown up under occupation and we must expect all the consequences that may flow from that," he said.

Mr Wilkie, a former military officer and intelligence analyst, described Ms Gillard's statement as "extraordinary".

"If it was up to me, I'd be very concerned with any military plan that still had us fighting in Afghanistan in 10 month's time, let alone 10 years," he said.

Mr Bandt said the Government had not adequately addressed allegations of corruption and criminality in Afghanistan's Karzai administration.

"On Monday I asked a question of the Minister for Defence about the alleged criminality of the Karzai government. He dodged the point and again yesterday, and today the Government has failed to respond directly," he said.

Mr Wilkie took aim at the Government and Opposition's argument that Australia needed to stay on in Afghanistan to stop terrorism threats.

"Ditch the dishonest terrorism rhetoric and try and sell the real reasons for our seemingly open-ended involvement in a war that has gone from bad to worse over nine years, making it one of the longest wars in Australian history." he said.

Mr Wilkie says while he is pro-United States, Australia would be at less risk of being taken for granted if it sometimes said no.

And he questioned why other MPs were not speaking out.

"Whatever happened to some of you that now you're so ready to sacrifice your soul for your party's political self-interest?" he said.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith, who also spoke in the Parliament today, said progress was being made and it was essential for Australia to remain in Afghanistan.

"The international community has cause for cautious optimism but we face a resilient insurgency and the situation in Afghanistan remains difficult, serious and dangerous with the potential to revert," he said.

Opposition defence science technology and personnel spokesman Stuart Robert says Australia must support the United States or risk being exposed to regional threats.

"This will require a strong and credible US as a counter balance, not one damaged from defeat in Afghanistan," he said.

"Our regional security remains predicated on the US's capacity to take decisive military action if required.

"A failing and weak Pakistan would be a significant problem for India and thus a significant regional issue."

© 2010 ABC

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/20/3043474.htm

The War On Terror [is a Fraud]
by Paul Craig Roberts via fleet 2010-10-20 06:59:46

Does anyone remember the “cakewalk war” that would last six weeks, cost $50-$60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues?

Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion?

Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.

Does anyone remember that just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US government declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Does anyone remember that the reason Dubya gave for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, weapons that the US government knew did not exist?

Are Americans aware that the same neoconservarives who made these fantastic mistakes, or told these fabulous lies, are still in control of the government in Washington?

The “war on terror” is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?

The bottom line answer is that the “war on terror” is about creating real terrorists. The US government desperately needs real terrorists in order to justify its expansion of its wars against Muslim countries and to keep the American people sufficiently fearful that they continue to accept the police state that provides “security from terrorists,” but not from the government that has discarded civil liberties.

The US government creates terrorists by invading Muslim countries, wrecking infrastructure and killing vast numbers of civilians. The US also creates terrorists by installing puppet governments to rule over Muslims and by using the puppet governments to murder and persecute citizens as is occurring on a vast scale in Pakistan today.

Neoconservatives used 9/11 to launch their plan for US world hegemony. Their plan fit with the interests of America’s ruling oligarchies. Wars are good for the profits of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us in vain a half century ago. American hegemony is good for the oil industry’s control over resources and resource flows. The transformation of the Middle East into a vast American puppet state serves well the Israel Lobby’s Zionist aspirations for Israeli territorial expansion.

Most Americans cannot see what is happening because of their conditioning. Most Americans believe that their government is the best on earth, that it is morally motivated to help others and to do good, that it rushes aid to countries where there is famine and natural catastrophes. Most believe that their presidents tell the truth, except about their sexual affairs.

The persistence of these delusions is extraordinary in the face of daily headlines that report US government bullying of, and interference with, virtually every country on earth. The US policy is to buy off, overthrow, or make war on leaders of other countries who represent their peoples’ interests instead of American interests. A recent victim was the president of Honduras who had the wild idea that the Honduran government should serve the Honduran people.

The American government was able to have the Honduran president discarded, because the Honduran military is trained and supplied by the US military. It is the same case in Pakistan, where the US government has the Pakistani government making war on its own people by invading tribal areas that the Americans consider to be friendly to the Taliban, al Qaeda, “militants” and “terrorists.”

Earlier this year a deputy US Treasury secretary ordered Pakistan to raise taxes so that the Pakistani government could more effectively make war on its own citizens for the Americans. On October 14 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered Pakistan to again raise taxes or the US would withhold flood aid. Clinton pressured America’s European puppet states to do the same, expressing in the same breath that the US government was worried by British cuts in the military budget. God forbid that the hard-pressed British, still reeling from American financial fraud, don’t allocate enough money to fight America’s wars.

On Washington’s orders, the Pakistani government launched a military offensive against Pakistani citizens in the Swat Valley that killed large numbers of Pakistanis and drove millions of civilians from their homes. Last July the US instructed Pakistan to send its troops against the Pakistani residents of North Waziristan. On July 6 Jason Ditz reported on antiwar.com that “at America’s behest, Pakistan has launched offensives against [the Pakistani provinces of] Swat Valley, Bajaur, South Waziristan, Orakzai,and Khyber.”

A week later Israel’s US Senator Carl Levin (D,MI) called for escalating the Obama Administration’s policies of US airstrikes against Pakistan’s tribal areas. On September 30, the Pakistani newspaper, The Frontier Post, wrote that the American air strikes “are, plain and simple, a naked aggression against Pakistan.”

The US claims that its forces in Afghanistan have the right to cross into Pakistan in pursuit of “militants.” Recently US helicopter gunships killed three Pakistani soldiers who they mistook for Taliban. Pakistan closed the main US supply route to Afghanistan until the Americans apologized.

Pakistan warned Washington against future attacks. However, US military officials, under pressure from Obama to show progress in the endless Afghan war, responded to Pakistan’s warning by calling for expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan. On October 5 the Canadian journalist Eric Margolis wrote that “the US edges closer to invading Pakistan.”

In his book, Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward reports that America’s puppet president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, believes that terrorist bombing attacks inside Pakistan for which the Taliban are blamed are in fact CIA operations designed to destabilize Pakistan and allow Washington to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

To keep Pakistan in line, the US government changed its position that the “Times Square Bombing” was the work of a “lone wolf.” Attorney General Eric Holder switched the blame to the “Pakistani Taliban,” and Secretary of State Clinton threatened Pakistan with “very serious consequences” for the unsuccessful Times Square bombing, which likely was a false flag operation aimed at Pakistan.

To further heighten tensions, on September 1 the eight members of a high-ranking Pakistani military delegation in route to a meeting in Tampa, Florida, with US Central Command, were rudely treated and detained as terrorist suspects at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport.

For decades the US government has enabled repeated Israeli military aggression against Lebanon and now appears to be getting into gear for another Israeli assault on the former American protectorate of Lebanon. On October 14 the US government expressed its “outrage” that the Lebanese government had permitted a visit by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who is the focus of Washington’s intense demonization efforts. Israel’s representatives in the US Congress threatened to stop US military aid to Lebanon, forgetting that US Rep. Howard Berman (D,CA) has had aid to Lebanon blocked since last August to punish Lebanon for a border clash with Israel.

Perhaps the most telling headline of all is the October 14 report, “Somalia’s New American Primer Minister.” An American has been installed as the Prime Minister of Somalia, an American puppet government in Mogadishu backed up by thousands of Ugandan troops paid by Washington.

This barely scratches the surface of Washington’s benevolence toward other countries and respect for their rights, borders, and lives of their citizens.

Meanwhile, to silence Wikileaks and to prevent any more revelations of American war crimes, the “freedom and democracy” government in DC has closed down Wikileaks’ donations by placing the organization on its “watch list” and by having the Australian puppet government blacklist Wikileaks. [Emphasis added.]

Wikileaks is now akin to a terrorist organization. The American government’s practice of silencing critics will spread across the Internet.

Remember, they hate us because we have freedom and democracy, First Amendment rights, habeas corpus, respect for human rights, and show justice and mercy to all.

Author retains copyright.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26610.htm

America's illegal Wars Bankrupt Britain
by Hélène Mulholland via stele 2010-10-20 07:30:11

The government has decided that Britain will no longer be able to mount military operations on the scale of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the deployment in Afghanistan's Helmand province, it emerged today as David Cameron unveiled the details of the strategic defence and security review.

The prime minister insisted that the coalition was protecting Britain's future security today as he confirmed deep cuts to the armed forces as part of an 8% real-terms fall in the defence budget by 2015.

But it emerged that the planned cuts to military personnel mean that the largest overseas deployment over the next decade will consist of 30,000 troops – two thirds of the number of British troops that took part in the invasion of Iraq.

This suggests that Britain will also no longer be able to sustain the sort of long-term campaign it is fighting in Helmand when combat British troops end their mission in Afghanistan in 2015. A future "enduring stabilisation operation" will consist of 6,500 troops – lower than the numbers currently in Afghanistan.

The prime minister, who announced that the army will be cut to 95,000 by 2015, said that Britain should focus more attention on the causes of conflict to reduce the high costs of "just dealing with the consequences" of failed states.

Cameron's announcement marks the end of Tony Blair's concept of "liberal interventionism", first set out in his 1999 Chicago speech during the Kosovo crisis.

Outlining the outcome of the review in a statement to the Commons this afternoon, Cameron sought to allay fears by insisting that, despite the cuts, Britain would still have the fourth largest military budget in the world and would meet the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.

The prime minister insisted that the review was not just a cost-saving exercise to "get to grips with the biggest budget deficit in post war history", but also about taking the "right decisions" to protect Britain's national security in the years ahead.

Measures announced today to scale down the budget included:

• A cut of 25,000 staff in the Ministry of Defence by 2015, the disposal of "unnecessary" assets, and a getting to grips with procurement.

• Cancelling the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft programme.

• Naval manpower to be cut by 5,000 to 30,000 by 2015 and the total number of frigates and destroyers to drop from 23 to 19 by 2020.

• The government to retire the Harrier jump jet and reduce RAF manpower by 5,000 to 33,000 by 2015.

• Tanks to be reduced by 40%.

• Half a billion pounds allocated to a national cyber security programme to counter unconventional threats of the future.

Outlining the backdrop to the cuts, Cameron said the coalition government had inherited a £38bn black hole in future defence plans – bigger than the entire annual defence budget of £33bn.

He said Britain would still punch "above its weight in the world" but needed to be "more thoughtful, more strategic and more co-ordinated in the way we advance our interests and protect our national security".

He added: "This review sets out a step change in the way we protect this country's security interests."

Cameron promised there would be "no cuts whatsoever" in support for troops in Afghanistan after taking the advice of the defence chiefs who had told him a cut could affect operations in Afghanistan. In fact, the troops in Afghanistan will get better equipment, he said.

Cameron also used his speech to confirm that the crucial decision about whether to replace Britain's nuclear deterrent – a fault line between the Tories and Liberal Democrats – would not be taken until after the next general election, which will be no later than 2015.

Instead, the life of the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the Trident system will be extended so that the final go-ahead for new submarines need not be given until "about 2016".

Cameron also confirmed the decision to retire the Harrier jump jet – a decision that, along with the retirement of the HMS Ark Royal, means that the UK will be without an aircraft carrier carrying jets until 2020.

Cameron said: "This is not simply a cost-saving exercise to get to grips with the biggest budget deficit in post-war history, it is about taking the right decisions to protect our national security in the years ahead. But the two are not separate. Our national security depends on our economic strength and vice versa. As our national security is a priority so defence and security budgets will contribute to deficit reduction on a lower scale than most other departments."

Cameron told MPs that the defence review has been led from the top and will be repeated every five years.

Outlining his vision for the future, he added: "From a Ministry of Defence that is too big, too inefficient and too overspent to a department that is smaller, smarter, and more responsible in its spending," he said.

"From a strategy over-reliant on military intervention to a higher priority for conflict prevention. From concentrating on conventional threats to a new focus on unconventional threats. And from armed forces that are overstretched, under-equipped and deployed too often without appropriate planning to the most professional and most flexible modern forces in the world, fully equipped for the challenges of the future."

The Lib Dems hailed the coalition's decision to reduce the number of warheads carried by Trident submarines.

Lady Williams, the Lib Dem peer, said the decision had come at a critical time for multilateral disarmament.

"The Start II treaty is the first agreement between the United States and Russia since Start I to cut their nuclear arsenals substantially. The treaty is now languishing in the US Senate, awaiting ratification. Ambitious plans to control the production of fissile materials are in suspension. The comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty is a distant aspiration. So this significant step by the UK government could help to remove the log-jam."

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told Cameron that the strategy was "not credible" and a "missed opportunity".

Miliband was greeted with shouts of "apologise" from Tory benches as he stood to respond.

He said: "We will help the prime minister and his government as they seek to do what is best for our nation's security. But I do have to tell him many people believe this review is a profound missed opportunity.

"It is a spending review dressed up as a defence review, it has been chaotically conducted, it has been hastily prepared and it is simply not credible as a strategic blueprint for our future defence needs."

Miliband also said the statement had been extensively leaked in a process he described as a "complete shambles"

© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/19/uk-can-no-longer-mount-military-operations-like-iraq