Fall back, men, Afghanistan is a nasty war we can never win

[spindrifter]

From The Sunday Times February 3, 2008

Simon Jenkins

The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, flies to Britain this week to meet a crisis entirely of London and Washington’s creation. They have no strategy for the continuing occupation of Afghanistan. They are hanging on for dear life and praying for something to turn up. Britain is repeating the experience of Gordon in Khartoum, of the Dardanelles, Singapore and Crete, of politicians who no longer read history expecting others to die for their dreams of glory.

Every independent report on the Nato-led operation in Afghanistan cries the same message: watch out, disaster beckons. Last week America’s Afghanistan Study Group, led by generals and diplomats of impeccable credentials, reported on “a weakening international resolve and a growing lack of confidence”. An Atlantic Council report was more curt: “Make no mistake, Nato is not winning in Afghanistan.” The country was in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.

<snip>

Common sense advocates a demilitarisation of the occupation, with a withdrawal of western troops to Kabul where they can try to protect the capital and the northern trade routes. In provinces to the south and east, Karzai’s money, weapons and negotiating skills must deliver what results they can. The West cannot possibly police Afghanistan with anything remotely like the resources it has available.

<snip>

Wise heads in Islamabad know that they must withdraw from the border and restore respect for tribal autonomy. Nothing else will incline the Pashtun and other tribes to reject Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies. The alternative is a growing insurgency that must destabilise whatever democratic regime might emerge from this month’s Pakistan elections. That prospect is far worse than whatever fate might befall Afghanistan.

<more>

[knitter4democracy]

1. Dude, I said that when we invaded.

If the Soviets couldn't win there (with it on their border at the time), we sure as heck can't.

[mac2]

9. The object of the illegal wars weren't to win or get Bin Laden

It was a much bigger goal. It was to destroy American wealth, power, and democracy. They also robbed our treasury generations beyond (just like Reagan). Along with it they robbed Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haitti, etc.

They are a world crime gang. Our money gone to where? In off-shore British banks. Congress and the "Injustice Department" could find it but then they'd all have to go to jail.

I thought about this a lot. We have to replace all of them and demand accountability for their money while in office (Hasertt), before office (like Obama) and after office (like Clinton).

[Bonobo]

2. How many invaders has Afghanistan kicked the ass of?

We're just another in a long line.

[Richard Steele]

4. All of them, basically. nm

[EFerrari]

11. That's right. You'd think by now these dumb @sses would know

to invade with bread and books instead. I guess there's no money in that.

[mac2]

19. Ah but the industrail military complex (Dubai) made a profit

And our military was weakened to a point where we can't even answer a national crisis. It has been the goal to destroy every institution in our government and replace it with a more dangerous and international one under the elite. We would have no say over our own military but they would use our money.

Our main goal is war and death. I'd say it's profit but only the few cash in on that. The profits make off shore British banks fat with our money. The EU is destroying us and then taking our wealth. Some friends.

Private mercinaries are paid more than our own. They murder and do terrorism in our name. Blackwater profiteering brings tears to one's eyes.

A military coup occurred under Bush\Cheney. They've been making our military smaller and less effective since Clinton. As Grover Norquist stated, the goal is to drown the govenment in a bath tub so it is no longer effective. Is that not treason?

X-President Bush gets his World Order Government sooner than you think. We lost many of our most experienced military leaders.

You still think it's important as a Democrat to elect the first Jewish VP, Afro-American or woman President? Is that a good goal not the survival of our nation and democracy? That's about the only goal we will accomplished because the elite few make all the decisions for our President and people anyway (G8, Bilderberg Group, etc.). They are no longer in power and many not even Americans (but European royals).

Why has our media not been outraged? They want it. They are globalists and care little about democracy or free speech today. The goal is to win.

How about electing a President of the people? One Congress that would impeach a illegal, corrupt President and VP who destroyed our country in just eight years to its knees? It's not politics as usual nor is it as it has always been...but Fascism.

Note: Remember when President GW Bush wanted to invade Afghanistan he said he wouldn't leave them in such dire strights as his father had previously? They'd free the women of their burkas, educate them, etc. Ya...like I believed that one. So remember folks they are all about lies.

[JohnyCanuck]

36. "The toughest lesson is that all elections are distractions."

The Evolution of Evil

By Joel Hirschhorn

Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

The tools of real rebellion are weak. Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and revolutions and think that when today’s victims of tyranny experience enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong. They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur rebellion. This too is wrong.

Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham; corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda; manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism, entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joel_s___080201_the_evolution_of_evi.htm

[mac2]

40. Football and the election

"selection" is so distracting and boring I want to throw my TV out. We should be doing something about our economy, war, open borders, health care problems, impeachment, etc.

I don't care about Britney Spears, the next super model, changing the color of my living room, what Hillary and Obama think of each other, etc. These are all distractions and frankly crap.

[water]

3. We're in two wars that we can't "win" without bombing out the entire country.

[Bonobo]

6. We could turn the country to glass and we would still lose.

[mac2]

20. You have not won the hearts and soul of the people.

Why are we there again? Oh Bin Laden? We destroyed a whole country to get one man on lies from our government about who attacked us on 911. Even after we got one man Suddam in Iraq we haven't won.

Are ya getting the idea? The battle was to remove democracy around the world not bring it.

I might consider thinking a new President will be different if they give us back our Constitution and bring our (what's left of them) home from around the world.

[JanMichael]

5. It's like nobody in America ever read "the Great Game".

"A" IT'S NOT A FUCKING GAME!!!!!


Oh and we'll lose too. Just like the rest have.

[theoldman]

7. Afghanistan is a fractured country.

You kill off one tribe and you are attacked by another. You would have to kill them all which would require a lot of nukes. No one is willing to do this and it would not solve anything. Too bad our government cannot or will not understand this.

[mtnsnake]

8. Not to worry. McCain will get us back on track by invading Grenada again & then the Bahamas

A couple back to back wins would do wonders for our morale.

[mac2]

21. Back to Iran Contra via McCain

He wants years of war in Iraq. Why? They didn't attack us John? Profit and a leader of Empire? The World Order Government (Americas Union) is on track.

There is no viable peace candidates even though our country is on it's knees. Or was that the idea John?

Is there no heart in these Neo Cons so screwed up with power and greed that they would destroy their own country and children's future?

[tabasco]

10. Too bad Bush thought Iraqi oil was more important.

If we had dedicated ourselves to completing the mission in Afghanistan, it could have been over six years ago.

We go in, we destroy the training camps and as many assholes as possible. We install a nominally friendly government with a promise that as soon as our satellites see training camps again, we're back. We get the f*ck out and it's Miller time at the O Club.

The same goes for any other countries that harbor the assholes, including Pakistan.

But Bush and the oil cronies want to occupy countries forever for pipelines and profiteering. Iraq wasn't even a threat to us but Cheney had to get on top of Exxon's oil. Republican chickenhawk profiteers have no business in the White House. These are truly tragic days for the USA.

[juajen]

15. The impossible terrain has a lot to do with

the perseverance of the Afghan people. No amount of mountain training can prepared our special forces for what they encounter in Afghanistan. But, the Afghans can travel that terrain with ease and knowledge. They have never been conquered. There are thousands of places to go to ground and never be found. They know them all. As a matter of fact, history has placed a sign on Afghanistan. It is "Enter at your own Risk." History is a marvelous thing. Too bad our leaders are no readers of history.

[scarletwoman]

12. Well, duh. There were a few of us -- admittedly very few -- who, back in the autumn of 2001,

did NOT think that bombing the shit out of Afghanistan was a very good idea. But we were roundly ridiculed and condemned by the majority of the good "liberals" here, who were absolutely certain of the righteousness of the project.

All I can say now is, fuck you all you assholes who thought that dropping bombs on people was a useful and moral exercise.

sw

[mac2]

24. Millions were in the streets around the world not just you

The media silenced them and the President\Congress ignored them calling them traitors. The spec was in their eye.

[scarletwoman]

26. The millions of protestors were in the streets over the IRAQ invasion, not Afghanistan.

There were protests against the attack on Afghanistan, but on nowhere near the scale as the later protests against the Iraq invasion. And very few people in THIS country even dared raise a peep of doubt in the hyper-nationalist post-9/11 atmosphere that prevailed at the time.

Here on DU, back in those early post-9/11 days, those of us who spoke out against attacking Afghanistan were a very small minority -- I was here, I remember it quite clearly.

sw

[Solly Mack]

28. You're correct. Small minority that voiced any opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan

on this board and the majority in "real life" were not speaking out against that invasion either.

I know of you, Don, myself, Karenina... and about 6 others (off the top of my head)...but by and large, a very small minority.

Both invasions were wrong. Both invasions were bullshit.

[scarletwoman]

31. Thanks, Solly Mack. Yeah, maybe 10 or 12 of us calling bullshit on the Afghanistan "war"

sounds about right. Fascinating, isn't it?

:hi:
sw

[Solly Mack]

32. All anyone has to do is a search. People argued that terrorism is a crime

and not an act of war and no cause to go to war. That NO, you can't trust Bush, nor is there any reason to think you can, and that NO, there is NO "standing with" Bush on anything.

And it was a very unpopular view, as you stated....people just didn't want to hear it.

You'd see post after post of "I supported Afghanistan but not Iraq" (shortly after the Iraq invasion)and a very few that said "I don't support either"

And this isn't about being right...this is about being tired and disgusted and beyond sad.

All of it has been senseless...just so senseless.

[scarletwoman]

38. Oh gawd, the old "I supported Afghanistan but not Iraq" crap -- YEARS of it here!

Haven't seen that one come up lately, but I'm willing to bet that there'd be plenty of DUers STILL on that bandwagon.

Yeah, "tired and disgusted and beyond sad." is a good summation. I'm also really angry. Angry that there are still so many blinders on, so much ignorance, so much entrenchment in conventional thinking, so much denial.

Bah.

[mac2]

42. I remember it well

http://www.workers.org/ww/2001/intldems1011.php

[NNN0LHI]

25. You and I were together on this one scarletwoman

And you are right that we were the minority even here.

Don

[scarletwoman]

30. Thanks, Don. Yeah, being against the attack on Afghanistan was NOT a popular position on DU back

in those days.

I remember both of us posting pleas from the courageous women of RAWA, warning that throwing Afghanistan into a bloody turmoil would only worsen conditions for the Afghani people.

I remember spending hours, day after day, digging up info about the Unocal pipeline project, about the attack plans that were already underway in JULY of 2001 -- BEFORE the September 11 attacks in New York and DC -- and posting everything I could find to say, "Look, there's alot of shit beneath the surface of this so-called justifiable military action, don't be so easily swept up into this war fever."

Not that it made much of a dent -- most DUers were so sure that bombing Afghanistan was the right thing to do.

But I remember these things, you and I both know the truth of how it was then. Thank you for speaking out.

sw

[mac2]

43. That's because the people believed the lies of our

leaders who the 911 terrorists were.

[gratuitous]

13. This story, of course, couldn't have been written in the States

I knew as soon as I read the first line, "a crisis entirely of London and Washington's creation." No U.S. news outlet will ever, ever blame any crisis anywhere on the corrupt Bush administration.

[Breeze54]

14. 240 female U.S. soldiers injured and 33 killed so far in Iraq and Afghanistan

Mar 7, 2007 ...

More than 160500 American female soldiers have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East
since the war began in 2003, which means one ...

----------

The private war of women soldiers
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/07/women_in_military/

Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male comrades and can't
trust the military to protect them. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman.
"It was for the guys on my own side."


Editor's note: This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

By Helen Benedict

March 7, 2007 | As thousands of burned-out soldiers prepare to return to Iraq to fill President Bush's unwelcome call for at least 20,000 more troops, I can't help wondering what the women among those troops will have to face. And I don't mean only the hardships of war, the killing of civilians, the bombs and mortars, the heat and sleeplessness and fear.

I mean from their own comrades -- the men.

I have talked to more than 20 female veterans of the Iraq war in the past few months, interviewing them for up to 10 hours each for a book I am writing on the topic, and every one of them said the danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection.

The female soldiers who were at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, for example, where U.S. troops go to demobilize, told me they were warned not to go out at night alone.

"They call Camp Arifjan 'generator city' because it's so loud with generators that even if a woman screams she can't be heard," said Abbie Pickett, 24, a specialist with the 229th Combat Support Engineering Company who spent 15 months in Iraq from 2004-05. Yet, she points out, this is a base, where soldiers are supposed to be safe.

Spc. Mickiela Montoya, 21, who was in Iraq with the National Guard in 2005, took to carrying a knife with her at all times. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," she told me. "It was for the guys on my own side."

Comprehensive statistics on the sexual assault of female soldiers in Iraq have not been collected, but early numbers revealed a problem so bad that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered a task force in 2004 to investigate. As a result, the Defense Department put up a Web site in 2005 designed to clarify that sexual assault is illegal and to help women report it. It also initiated required classes on sexual assault and harassment. The military's definition of sexual assault includes "rape; nonconsensual sodomy; unwanted inappropriate sexual contact or fondling; or attempts to commit these acts."

Unfortunately, with a greater number of women serving in Iraq than ever before, these measures are not keeping women safe. When you add in the high numbers of war-wrecked soldiers being redeployed, and the fact that the military is waiving criminal and violent records for more than one in 10 new Army recruits, the picture for women looks bleak indeed.

Last year, Col. Janis Karpinski caused a stir by publicly reporting that in 2003, three female soldiers had died of dehydration in Iraq, which can get up to 126 degrees in the summer, because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being raped by male soldiers if they walked to the latrines after dark.

More....

---------------

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Women on the Front Lines

With 240 female U.S. soldiers injured and 33 killed so far in Iraq and Afghanistan,
some military analysts are calling for a review of U.S. policy on women ...
www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21557/

[juajen]

16. Subject: The impossible terrain has a lot to do with

the perseverance of the Afghan people. No amount of mountain training can prepare our special forces for what they encounter in Afghanistan. But, the Afghans can travel that terrain with ease and knowledge. They have never been conquered. There are thousands of places to go to ground and never be found. They know them all. As a matter of fact, history has placed a sign on Afghanistan. It is "Enter at your own Risk." History is a marvelous thing. Too bad our leaders are no readers of history.

[stillcool]

17. But we're going into Pakistan...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Thursday the United States is "ready, able and willing" to send troops to Pakistan to help its military battle al Qaeda -- if the Pakistani government is interested.
art.gates.pool.jpg
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/24/gates.pakistan/

U.S. willing to send combat troops to Pakistan
Pentagon chief says small number could be sent if requested
Associated Press
January 25, 2008
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/bal-te.uspakistan25jan25,0,2779174.story
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is willing to send a small number of U.S. combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for such help, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says al Qaeda has increased its activity in Pakistan.

The announcement comes as Pakistan's government faces what Gates called increased efforts there by the terrorist group.

[mac2]

22. What troops are left?

Since Bush and Israel are so concerned over "democracy, oil, and land" let them take up their guns. We can't win a war against Islam you pea brains. It's not that we need to either.

[stillcool]

29. My pea brain...

thinks it's ridiculous to even contemplate that this war has anything to do with Islam. Hence the maps. What troops? Well I'm not sure the troops in Pakistan will be of any use, but you never know. It is the US foreign policy to arm foreign troops to fight their battles. "We" may not need to win this war, but those that are orchestrating it obviously do not agree.

[mac2]

34. Maps explain our foreign policy to invade any country?

[stillcool]

35. very much so to me..

as in why are we there?

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm
Special Government Favors and “National Security”

Those who deny oil company complicity in the Iraq War always insist that the companies have little political influence, that they are “out of the loop” in Washington, that they are just one industry group among many others. These arguments are utterly false. The oil companies have always enjoyed “insider” privileges with the US and UK governments, resulting in many unique favors in the name of “national security.”

The United States government offers the companies extremely favorable tax treatment, including the “oil depletion allowance” and “intangible drilling costs” – far more than the ordinary capital depreciation available to other companies. In 1960, at the behest of the National Security Council, the international companies obtained the lucrative “foreign tax credit,” enabling deductions for taxes or royalties paid to foreign governments. In 1974, while the US corporate tax rate was 48%, the nineteen largest oil companies paid a tax rate of only 7.6%.16

The companies have also enjoyed unofficial immunity from anti-trust or anti-monopoly laws. Though the US government knew for decades about the international oil cartel, federal authorities took no enforcement action until 1952, when President Harry Truman ordered a criminal anti-trust suit. The companies mobilized all their legal and political muscle to quash the case. General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly approached the President and successfully urged that the “national security” required a softening of the government’s legal stance. Shortly afterwards, the National Security Council decided on various limitations to the suit that further weakened the government’s case. Though the judicial process lumbered on for fifteen years, the oil companies had nothing to fear and remained safely protected by the national security umbrella. Today, after a decade of mega-mergers, the companies still escape anti-trust scrutiny.17

US military/security policy has served the oil companies as comprehensively as have the tax and legal rulings. Virtually every US presidential security doctrine since World War II has aimed at protecting company interests in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, and the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan Doctrines all asserted Washington’s special concerns in the Gulf and arrogated to the United States special rights to “protect” or “defend” the area. Recently-released secret papers show that during the oil crisis and Arab oil embargo of 1973, Washington seriously considered sending a military strike force to seize some of the region’s richest fields – in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi.18

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter set up the US Central Command, a permanent military force designed to intervene in the Middle East on short notice. Presidents have expanded and strengthened this force several times since. Headquartered in Florida, but with a number of bases in the Middle East, the command maintains pre-positioned supplies and heavy weapons at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and it can call on strike aircraft units, global satellite intelligence, cruise missiles, rapidly deployable ground troops and carrier-based naval fleets.19

In testimony to Congress in 1999, General Anthony C. Zinni, commanding officer of the Central Command, affirmed the importance of the Persian Gulf region, with its huge oil reserves. It is a “vital interest” of “long standing,” he said, and the United States “must have free access to the region’s resources.”20
READ MORE............................
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm

[mac2]

39. We don't belong there

I don't care what General Zinni or President Carter said. Carter gave away our Panama Canal and then the Chinese got it. Ya...he's a real smart leader. Why do you suppose Carter was put out of power?

It is globalization and Empire Building. We are not Britain but a democracy. It's not national security but profit of the corporatist. Our country falls apart while the few rule the world for their own profit and power? Not good foreign policy.

[stillcool]

41. It seems my pea brain...

does not prompt me to use vocabulary as acerbic as yours, nor to make generalized statements of a broad span of history. No sense in having this conversation at all, is there?

[Hekate]

18. The people in "the Stans" have lived there since the Dawn of Time & know the territory intimately...

BushCo is composed of ignorant, a-historical, fools.

Hekate

[mac2]

23. Look at our leaders none of them went to war

What do they know or care? As Madeline Albright stated after Shock & Awe of Iraq. It was worth it.

[blondeatlast]

27. They learned nothing, nothing at all from the Russians? Incompetent and ignorant is no way

to operate the State Department. Jay Bush on a trailer hitch, stop the assholes, please.

[mac2]

33. Russia was and still is Empire Building

So are we, British, etc.

[scarletwoman]

37. By the way, you didn't include the link to the piece you posted -- here it is:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/simon_jenkins/article3295340.ece