Senseless slaughter and anti-western hysteria are all America and Britain's billions have paid for in a counterproductive war.
If good intentions ever paved a road to hell, they are doing so in Afghanistan. History rarely declares when folly turns to disaster, but it does so now. Barack Obama and his amanuensis, Gordon Brown, are uncannily repeating the route taken by American leaders in Vietnam from 1963 to 1975. Galbraith once said that the best thing about the Great Depression was that it warned against another. Does the same apply to Vietnam?
The Guardian
I get a big kick out of Simon, he acts as if all of these stated causes of American Imperialism are the reasons for the actions they took yesterday and today. What a way to start and article, by swallowing all of the rhetoric for aggression and assuming all of the acts are repeated "mistakes."
ReplyDeleteIt is because they all serve the same interest, not that of any of their people - but the few. With visions of their dominance and enrichment - and that may not mean over the long run, but merely the ability to milk dry the money systemically from the machine to empower the next generation of elites ad infinitum. The only question that remains, that I have asked numerous times - when will the people wake up and completely gut this process?
The Afghans haven't lost yet. Not by a long shot. In the February, 2009, public opinion poll, 91% of Afghans had a negative view of the Taliban, 91% had a negative view of Pakistan. the Afghans have a lot of fight left in them still. This same poll showed that 87% of all Afghans had a positive view of the ANA (Afghan National Army.)
ReplyDeleteI challenge Simon Jenkins to prove that the ANA is in any way "losing" this fight.
However, the entire GIRoA (Gov Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) only has $800 million a year in annual revenues. They need substantial foreign funding/training/equipping for their ANA and ANP. They also need substantial foreign funding/training for their public sector employees; and for economic development. President Obama has promised to sharply increase US grants for Afghanistan. I hope other countries follow suit.
One point, however, merits discussion. By far the two worst provinces in Afghanistan (out of 34) are Helmand and Kandahar as per the 6.25.09 briefing by Regional Command South's commanding Major General. In these two provinces the Taliban and their AQ linked allies have substantial popular support, and much of the insurgancy is homeground, albeit with large numbers of Pakistani fighters fighting alongside them. More importantly, in these two provinces, the GIRoA is much less popular than it is in the rest of the country. The only national politician with some popularity in these provinces is Karzai. I also suspect but cannot prove that the ANA is much less popular in these two provinces than it is in the rest of Afghanistan.
Running through all of the statistics (fabricated though they are) does not legitimize what is being done in Afghanistan Anand. Sorry, time to get out and stay out.
ReplyDeletev, do you disbelieve all public opinion surveys? Are all of them illegitimate?
ReplyDeleteDo Afghans have a right to select their own leaders? Is is okay in the world of V, for people to violently attack Afghanistan's elected government, its ANA and ANP?
89,500 soldiers in the ANA are not getting out V. They will defeat the enemies of Afghanistan. All they need is foreign funding, training and equipping. No doubt V opposes all international funding, training and equipping for the ANA. Not everyone agrees with you V.
The Takfiri trying to kill Afghans also want to target everyone else, including V. They would tear V apart piece by piece if they got a chance. The ANA is not only protecting Afghans, but many foreigners like V.
The article had this quote: "eight years of training costing $15bn have been near useless, when men simply decline to fight except to defend their homes. Any Afghan pundit will attest that training a Pashtun to fight a Pashtun is a waste of money, while training a Tajik to the same end is a waste of time."
ReplyDeleteSimon Jenkins is either incredibly stupid or a lier. Probably both. I challenge this racist to prove that the ANA does not fight well. Could this racist fight any soldier in the ANA without getting his butt wooped?
<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style=" color: #404040; font-family: Verdana;">"Our interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a haven for terrorists bent on attacking us. That does not require the scale of military operations that the incoming administration is contemplating. It does not require wholesale occupation. It does not require the endless funneling of human treasure and countless billions of taxpayer dollars to the Afghan government."</span>
ReplyDelete<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style=" color: #404040; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style=" color: #404040; font-family: Verdana;">Bob Herbert, The New York Times, January 6, 2009</span>
<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style=" color: #404040; font-family: Verdana;"> </span>
<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style=" color: #404040; font-family: Verdana;"> </span>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyZ4SaEzNWI&NR=1
ReplyDeleteNobody is presently coming over here "the commies are coming" Anand. However, these policies may insure the fact that the US is attacked again, and no doubt it will be to the pleasure of this or any other administration that wants to feed a war machine - push its dominance on other regions for the sake of a strategy and to exploit both natural and human resources, and kill untold numbers of innocent people.
ReplyDeleteThis will do nothing but contibute to the commiseration of people in these countries, and gut the American people. Any country which pursues empire will destroy its own people, this is the lesson of history. Nations that claim to be of and for the people, but do not care for them nor listen to them, are only interested in the enrichment of a small group of people. This has always been and will ever be the wages of destructive empire.
Within 24 hours the ANA deployed a battalion to Kandahar with its own aircraft that went after the Taliban hard, killing or capturing many of them. The ANA's performance during the prison break was impressive.
ReplyDeleteNote that when the prison break took place, there was a major shortage of ANP (Afghan national police.) All of Afghanistan, with its 31 million people, only had about 3,000 trained ANP at the begining of 2008. The GIRoA (Gov Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) lacked funding for the ANP.
Keep in mind that the ANA and ANP both recieved little international support before 2007. The ANP began recieving substantial international support in February, 2008.
Rumsfeld opposed sending US troops to Afghanistan to train and equip the ANP, and only allowed a very small number to go to Afghanistan to train and equip the army until he was fired in November, 2006. Large numbers of American troops did not deploy to Afghanistan until after Rumsfeld was fired. Also remember that when President Bush authorized the deployment of US troops to Afghanistan in November, 2006, they went to east Afghanistan.
Obama has doubled the US commitment to training and equipping the ANA and ANP. He is also sending US forces to the South and the West for the fist time.
Part of the reason that so few US troops went to Afghanistan until 2007, and that the US did so little to help the ANA and ANP, was because US forces were sent to Iraq in lieu of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan only had 3,000 trained police officers at the begining of 2008! Even the ANA didn't really start growing until 2007. A military solution has not been tried in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth. There is no way it can pay for its own army and police. Even now, with heavy foreign assistance, the Taliban and AQ pay their soldiers much more (perhaps three times as much) as the GIRoA pays an ANA soldier.
ReplyDeleteThe Taliban and AQ linked networks collect more each year in revenue than the entire country of Afghanistan collects in tax revenue ($800 milion per year.)
What is empire? Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth. For China, Afghanistan's largest trading and investment partner, Afghanistan is a drop in the bucket. Afghanistan is so small it has almost no impact on the global economy.
ReplyDeleteI hope that Afghanistan can become as big an economic success as India has become post 1991.
Listen you little fucking liar I am tired of your bullshit, I am not going to circle over and over and FUCKING over again with you, I wish I knew where the hell you were you ass! The strategic location, and the never ending horse shit of running god damned pipe lines through there is the goal. It is the possibility of a threat to their precious theft.
ReplyDeleteYou want to know what an empire is you little shit? Globalization, as it is posed today (it is not globalism because it only enriches the few), is a future variant of Empire. It is an attempt to extend corporate monopoly control over the entire globe. Over every national economy, local economy, and every life. It does this by treating international corporate property rights and international corporate investment rights, as supreme - taking precedence over all other rights, including our democratic sovereignty.
There is nothing inevitable about it, nothing natural, globalization is forced on humanity by a series of secretive international trade agreements. Hence, it is also a future variant of Imperialism. Imperialism, empire etc, - is a sytem in which the leading dominant elements in one country (or more) expropriate the land, the labor, the resources, the capital of other people in other countries. Imperialism and empire is an expansionist form of capitalism. Once again this definitive regurgitation is not for you Anand, but for honest people who really want to know.
"A military solution has not been tried in Afghanistan."
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you shut up you historical imbecile.
"The strategic location, and the never ending horse shit of running god damned pipe lines through there is the goal."
ReplyDeleteI hope it were the goal. The GIRoA could use an extra $300 million a year in annual pipeline transit fees. India could use the lower transportation costs to buy central asian natural gas. Pakistan could use the transit fees and lower natural gas prices too. Central Asia would benefit from lower natural gas transportation costs, because it would mean that they could sell their natural gas at a higher price than they currently are. Unfortunately, no pipeline will be built until Pakistan stabilizes. Too bad.
Pakistan's civil war is also stopping the construction of the Iran/Pakistan/India natural gas pipeline.
V, your communist socialist way has been tried in North Korea. It failed:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/S-Korean-bank-says-N-Korean-apf-2870202099.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=
North Korea's economy is only 2.6% the size of South Korea's economy. The only reason there isn't mass starvation in North Korea is because South Korea, America, China and Japan give North Korea a huge quantity of grants every year.
South Korea, which was poorer than India per capita in 1953, is now a rich country. South Korea became rich by asking to be exploited. By joining and in time coming to lead empire. By joining imperialism.
I choose South Korea over North Korea any day V.
Tell me Anand, do you just grab things that fly out of your ass without knowledge or discernment? You are a certified wacko
ReplyDeleteThe ANA just started forming. The ANP is years behind the ANA. US troops didn't deploy to Afghanistan in large numbers until after Rumsfeld was fired in late 2006. Remember that when the Afghan resistance completed its defeat of the Taliban in 2001, there were only 300 US special forces + 100 CIA agents in all of Afghanistan. That was the extent of the "US occupation."
ReplyDeleteSome people like me were horrified that the US refused to send trainers for the ANA and ANP for 5 years, and refused to pay for them. Instead Bush sent US troops to Iraq because "he tried to kill my Dad."
V, in what universe is 3,000 trained ANP sufficient for a country of 31 million? Look it up for yourself. This is where the ANP was at the begining of 2008.
ReplyDeleteI guess that V would fire most of the police around the world if he took over. Why have police? Why not have V's revolution without police or armies to provide security?
Two main reasons for continuing the Afghan war (and why people who still think Barrack is just playing along until he launches a surprise attack on the power elites and unleashes ponies and rainbows across the land):
ReplyDelete1) War is lucrative. All those contracts are meting out billions of dollars that come from taxpayers (you sad suckers) via government extortion on to huge corporations that are controlled by a handful of men.
2) The drug trade is currently maintaining the solvency of the US banking system, as the banks are some of the biggest drug runners (in cahoots with the gubmint, of course).
No, fuck you, this is true.
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 120%;"><span style="">“An airstrike from a b1 bomber, the 1000 pound bomb obliterated several homes and the concussion wave from the blast short-circuited my video camera but the Taliban kept shooting.”</span>
ReplyDelete<p style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt; line-height: 120%;"><span style="">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UIqRxzgtyo&NR=1</span>
Helmand and Kandahar province are by far the two worst provinces out of 34 in Afghanistan. This year both provinces will see US troops in significant numbers for the first time.
ReplyDeleteAs per a briefing on 6.25.09, the Afghan National Army "Hero" 205th Corps is getting 4 additional combat battalions (my supposition is that they might arrive next year.) This would push the 205th ANA to 16 combat battalions from 12 combat battalions.
205th ANA Corps is responsible for Southern Afghanistan. It currently has 4 combat manouver brigades. 3 of them are CM-1, the highest quality rating. The 4th is newly formed and is probably CM-3.
My guess is that the South needs substantially more ANP and ANA. I hope that Obama and the international community pays for it.
R.S. keep in mind that many of those soldiers fighting the ANA, ANP and ISAF are Pakistani Army veterans. Many have seen combat for years (alongside the Taliban in the 1990s, in Kashmir against India, in Chechnya, in Bosnia, in the central Asian republics.)
ReplyDelete