Whose War, What War?

Whose War, What War?
By David Glenn Cox


Reports out of the United Kingdom say that President Obama will acquiesce to General McChyrstal’s request and add 45,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The official announcement is to be made before next week’s NATO meeting.

The long delay has been seen by conservatives as an opportunity to call the President a weak, lazy, Nigerian-born Marxist, Communist, Socialist, hell bent on destroying America. When actually it has been a delay by the White House to make the President look thoughtful and contemplative before charging full bore into a continuation of the Bush/Cheney foreign policy.

Japan has dropped out of the Afghan mission, minor though it was, but the message is clear, continue this folly on your own! This war was started in Afghanistan because the Taliban government refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden to the United States. The Taliban first claimed that because there was no formal extradition treaty that they were under no obligation. Then they claimed that they didn’t know where Bin Laden was or if he was still even in Afghanistan. The first charge was specious but the second charge now eight years later seems to hold some validity.

So what are our goals? What do we win? How do we know that we are winning? During WWII Americans could watch on the map as allied forces pushed the axis forces back towards their borders. The public tolerated terrible losses because they could see that progress was being made. Today if you ask what are our goals are in Afghanistan the answer might be returned, “We are bringing democracy.” The recent elections and the nature of Afghan society make that old saw as thin as a cotton shirt on a cold night.

So I began to read the press from other nations and the further I got from the United States the more the perception of our occupation of Afghanistan mutated. From the Asia Times,

“KUNDUZ - The vehicle is marked Kunduz Provincial Police Headquarters, but the occupants are not necessarily servants of the state.

"The Taliban in Kunduz recently captured eight police Ford Ranger pickups in Chahr Dara district, and they use them to move around.

“'The Taliban have complete control over the district. They have established their own brand of Islamic rule, and they can move around the villages and bazaars openly, with no fear. There is no government authority here. We have control only over the governor’s office,' said Abdul Wahid, the district governor of Chahr Dara. 'Outside these walls we have no jurisdiction at all. People do not come to the governor's office to solve their problems – they go to the Taliban.'”

This after eight years and billions of dollars spent in the US occupation of Afghanistan.

“Kunduz province only a year ago was considered stable with business booming and residents hopeful.”

Four other districts are in the same situation as Kunduz. The local officials cash their checks and drive their new trucks until the Taliban take them away, and when the going gets tough the officials run.

After eight years the Afghan army is still unable to protect the people from the Taliban. In the Philippines during WWII, the Filipino resistance movement was the scourge of the Japanese occupation. With no outside support using mainly captured weapons they tied down thousands of Japanese troops. This movement formed in less than two years. A coast watcher with a radio and a 45-caliber pistol ended the war, in charge of over 140 men with two captured patrol boats and an armored barge. The difference was in motivation; the Filipinos wanted the Japanese gone.

The Governor of Kunduz blames Pakistan, saying that as long as NATO supplies were being routed through Pakistan the local Pakistanis were profiting from taxes and fees. But since the attack on the NATO supply routes NATO has rerouted the supplies through Tajikistan, leaving the locals in the area with a financial void to fill. So if the locals have nothing to gain perhaps destabilizing that area of the country might bring NATO supplies back to the area.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Carsten Spiering, spokesman for the German Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kunduz, did not dismiss the notion that the change of supply routes might account for some of the unrest in the province.

“Kunduz police chief Mohammad Razaq Yaqubi, however, links the security problems to smugglers of narcotics in Kunduz. 'The Taliban try to increase cultivation and production of opium in this region,' he said. 'This war in Kunduz belongs to the narcotics mafia, which is operating in the name of Islam.'

"Yaqubi called on the international forces to do battle with the smugglers. 'They need to fight against them,' he insisted. 'Al-Qaeda gets a lot of its income from drugs and buys military equipment with it.'"

Please take note, the same guy that lost the eight brand new pickup trucks wants international forces to come battle Al-Qaeda. He is the only one who mentions Al Qaeda. I bet if he says Al Qaeda five times fast he will get eight more new pickup trucks. We gave him money and manpower and vehicles, and his answer is for others to come fight his fight.

“I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it—the people of Viet-Nam.” (John Kennedy 1963)

Asia Times goes on to say, "Political analyst Ghulam Haidar Haidar believes that foreigners are behind the insecurity in Kunduz. 'The United States wants a base from which to threaten Russia,' he said. 'The US political interests in central Asia are no secret. The United States can achieve its goals only if the Taliban shift to the other side of the Oxus . Then American forces can go into Central Asia in the name of the war on terror.'"

True? I don’t know but it makes more sense than spending billions of dollars and spilling the blood of our service people to establish democracy in a land that will have none of it.

"I will draw your attention to the basics of the present war theater and use that to explain the whole strategy of the upcoming battles. Those who planned this battle actually aimed to bring the world's biggest Satan and its allies into this trap and swamp . Afghanistan is a unique place in the world where the hunter has all sorts of traps to choose from.

"It might be deserts, rivers, mountains and the urban centers as well. This was the thinking of the planners of this war who were sick and tired of the great Satan's global intrigues and they aim for its demise to make this world a place of peace and justice. However, the great Satan was full of arrogance of its superiority and thought of Afghans as helpless statues who would be hit from all four sides by its war machines, and they would not have the power and capacity to retaliate.

"This was the illusion on which a great alliance of world powers came to Afghanistan, but due to their misplaced conceptions they gradually became trapped in Afghanistan. Today, NATO does not have any significance or relevance. They have lost the war in Afghanistan. Now, when they realized their defeat, they developed an emphasis that this entire battle is being fought from outside of Afghanistan, that is, the two Waziristans. To me, this military thesis is a mirage which has created a complex situation in the region and created reactions and counter-reactions. I would not like to go into the details, to me that was nothing but deviation. As a military commander, the reality is that the trap of Afghanistan is successful and the basic military targets on the ground have been achieved." (Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, Al-Qaeda commander)

Many native Pashtuns see this as a war waged against Pashtuns; many locals see it as a war of aggression, no different from the Soviet invasion of a generation before. The Imams see it as a war against Islam. Right wing conservatives see it as a just war against Islamo-facism, whatever that is. Some locals see it as a gateway to riches, supplying information to the military and assisting the occupiers while working their own black market operations. But to me, at least, it is the gateway to nowhere, a black hole down which to dump money and blood.

The United States has effectively quarantined the island of Cuba, fifty miles from our shores. No blood, little treasure lost. Or the other alternative,

“The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, told MSNBC's Meet the Press Sunday that the United States faces 10 more years of war in Afghanistan.”

Eighteen years in Afghanistan? Now that’s crazy.

Declare victory and get the hell out now!

I know I am 10,000 % against this, but Obama has done little i have seen that represents my democratic values and principles.

Obama does this on his own..it is his war now..and not in my name!

President Obama. The RW will continue to characterize him as weak on terrorism. And more troops will not achieve much.

A baby in 2001 turns eighteen and goes to war in Afghanistan?
What will we call it? The Generational War? The twenties years war?

for all those billions