By:
Peter Chamberlin The war in Afghanistan is being escalated on false pretenses. There is zero chance to “win” the war with the “new” (which is the same old failed) strategy and everybody involved with it knows it. When Obama and McChrystal use the words “win” and “victory,” they are not using the same dictionary used by the rest of the human race. “Victory” to them, means that the greater undefined mission can continue, not come to an end.
Afghanistan, like Iraq, will never see the withdrawal of American/NATO forces; that’s why all the giant super-bases are needed in both countries. That also applies to the massive super-embassy being built in Islamabad. “Victory” is not winning, but is the point in the war when large numbers of troops fighting this war can be safely transferred to the next war. This is what we are seeing in the so-called withdrawal from Iraq and will probably see in the anticipated withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011. There will never be a real American withdrawal from any of these countries, unless it is forced upon them by the people.
Just like Iraq, Afghanistan has been drawn-out until the start of the next war in Pakistan. This is done with the fraudulent war strategy of training replacement armies to fight the enemies which America’s superior forces could not defeat. Switching missions from an offensive war to a training mission merely gives the adversary time to reinforce. All the generals and strategists are aware of this; it is simply a part of the plan. The plan has nothing to do with defeating anyone, except maybe for eventually defeating the Russians. We might also fight for the sake of denying energy resources to our greater adversaries, the Chinese.
The “war on terror” is in reality, a war on mediocrity. We are waging this war in order to maintain our position as “Number One” boss of the world. Our leaders have determined that we cannot accept any other nation becoming our equal, meaning that they would have to share the power that they have accumulated unto themselves. The infamous document from the “neocon” Project for a New American Century, which clearly delineates this triumphal American ideology, is not an expression of a radical minority, but rather, a summation of the single American ideology which is common to both political parties. There are two neoconservative parties in America, masquerading as opposites.
The escalation in southern Afghanistan is embraced by both parties, as American and NATO forces move against local Taliban, hoping to push all the fighters into Balochistan, or back into South Waziristan. The entire war effort has consisted of herding the militants wherever central command planned to go next. This is the reason that many of the posts along the Durand Line were closed before Pakistan moved into S. Waziristan. Who ever heard of military planners opening the back door before coming in the front? How can pincer by itself perform a pincer movement?
As long as the American people are willing to wage war without defined missions, our so-called leaders will be able to play these dangerous games. One would think that the ever loyal American veterans would grow tired of watching their comrades and their own children die for wars based on nothing but lies. The dishonor they bring upon all servicemen, by not speaking-up for their own, will haunt them until the day they die. Soldiers who are martyred in the liberation of countries are rightly honored, but who will honor those who have given their lives in wars fought to enslave mankind?
The American people were enlisted in this war under the pretense of fighting against a malignant evil, only to see this war hijacked in the service of other causes. The fight against terrorists has become a war against nuclear proliferation, a war for Israel’s security, a war for oil, a war for any reason they dream-up.
What has become of the moral sense of the people of the United States? Has life for us become so hard and uncertain that we will support any effort to merely keep things from getting worse, even if that means turning every country, especially our own, into a police state? We surrender our rights to choose our own destinies when we submit to the extortion that to do otherwise will make things get a lot worse. Isn’t this the same threat that Prince Bandar allegedly made to the British Crown over ending pay-offs–that failing to comply with his demands would mean that the terror against Britain would get a lot worse?
If we don’t support Obama and McChrystal’s surge, then what will happen? They tell us that if we don’t let them have their way, then the terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan will only grow worse. I say that is a total lie. If they do escalate the Special Forces and Predator strikes into Pakistan, launching a powerful counter-insurgency campaign, then I guarantee that everywhere will become like Peshawar is today. Peshawar is bombed daily, because the armies of militants were driven to the city’s doorstep.
Apparently these assholes haven’t figured-out the formula for this war yet—the more innocent people you kill, the more young men will volunteer to fight against the Americans to avenge them. The anti-American terrorism that makes the whole world suffer is not a spontaneous phenomenon; it is a reaction against what we have been doing in that part of the world for a lot longer than this current war has been raging. They fight because we kill their friends and relatives, simple as that.
America’s military leaders act as if they make policy for the politicians, instead of the other way around. They make their plans and tell us that we must stick to them; else our “American way of life” will perish from the face of this earth. Well, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, after all. They don’t bother to own-up to the facts about our precious way of life, even though everything around us screams-out about the utter wrongness of our ways.
The continuing global economic collapse has been precipitated by American greed and profit-takers upsetting the balance of the international economic system. The low-level world war we see before us is a direct result of the many unnecessary low-level wars we have started, trying to preserve our inflated status. One day soon, the world will hold American leaders accountable for what they have done to the world in their greed. But in the end, it will be the American people, who will pay the price for the havoc that has been unleashed, in addition to the hundreds of millions globally who live in our chosen war zones. In the end, America as we know it will cease to exist within the global American empire, or in the catastrophic chaos that will result from failure of the empire. Either way, the America of our youth is no more.
It will only be through our own uprising and chaining these criminal psychopaths who run and ruin our Nation that the world will be spared what is barreling down the road at us. The war in Afghanistan is but an act of very desperate men.
peterchamberlin@naharnet.com
Source: There Are No Sunglasses
