Progressives: Iraq war bad, Afghan war good. Really?

[Truth2Tell]

America's Gulag and the Good War
Strange Fruit

By CHRIS FLOYD

The long-running "progressive" stance on America's 21st century imperial adventures can be reduced to this simple dichotomy: Afghan war good, Iraq war bad. And for all progressives who want to be regarded as "serious," the Iraq war is bad because it has distracted us from the real war, the good war, in Afghanistan. This theme has been sounded over and over by the "progressive" candidates throughout the presidential campaign. It is the opinion of a sizable majority of the U.S. population, which has clearly repudiated the Iraq war but still supports the Afghan war.

-snip

Gall and Worthington tell the story of Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, an Afghan war hero who had fought against the Soviets, brazenly defied the Taliban--and died in the American concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. After the American invasion replaced the Taliban with another set of vicious warlords, druglords and radical sectarians, Hekmati fell afoul of the new Bush-installed regime. In 2003, he accused the governor of Helmland province, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, of widespread corruption--and of shielding senior Taliban members. Suddenly, Hekmati found himself accused of being a Taliban leader and high-level al Qaeda official--absurd charges, vehemently denied by all who knew him, including senior officials in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

But still Hekmati was seized by American forcesacting as muscle to protect the notorious Helmland druglord--and shipped off to the American concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. There he rotted for five years, hauled up occasionally for kangaroo "tribunals" which refused to contact the many officials in the American-backed Afghan government who would have vouched for his innocence--even when these same officials were actively seeking out top Bush administration figures to plead Hekmati's case.

But like so many people, Hekmati's friends misunderstood the purpose of the Guantanamo concentration camp. It has nothing at all to do with "fighting terrorism," in Afghanistan or anywhere else. It has nothing to do with prosecuting the "good war" in Afghanistan and bringing peace and freedom to that ravaged land. The Guantanamo concentration camp--like the Afghan war itself--is first and foremost a display of domination. It is the precise equivalent of a vicious ape beating his chest and baring his teeth to assert his sway over the group. The fate of any one individual, however innocent, caught up in the Terror War gulag--or killed in the Terror War's military operations--does not matter in the least. They are merely means to an end--and the end is dominance, "full spectrum dominance" of world affairs. Our leading apes make no secret of this. A "unipolar world" under the hegemony of the United States has been the openly proclaimed goal of a broad swath of the bipartisan foreign establishment for many years -- especially the particularly nasty faction that has coalesced around the illegitimate presidency of George W. Bush.

More at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02052008.html

[NNN0LHI]

1. The Afghans we are killing now were little kids in 2001 when this began 6 years ago

So were the occupying forces we are sending there to kill them.

This makes little sense.

Don

[LakeSamish706]

2. And not only that, when you look at 911, An outed CIA agent, the lies that...

were used to take us into Iraq... This total war on terror is a pile of Bullshit with many people loosing there lives at the hands of this corrupt Administration.

[ixion]

3. This progressive was ardently opposed to BOTH invasions

so that's a bit of a straw man, IMO.

[Truth2Tell]

4. I've seen a LOT of DUers

defend the war in Afghanistan. And all the so-called Progressive Presidential candidates still support it, and all of the Democratic Congressional leadership. All of these folks claim to be Progressive. Go figure.

[scarletwoman]

6. Yes, but if you had been here on DU back in the fall of 2001, you would have found

yourself among an extremely small minority who were arguing against the attack on Afghanistan. It's not a straw man at all. In all the years since, you can find post after post of DUers proclaiming that they were against the invasion of Iraq, but were FOR the war on Afghanistan -- the "good" war, the "right" war.

Chris Floyd is exactly right. The great majority of "liberals/progressives" in the U.S. were all for going into Afghanistan.

See this recent thread: Fall back, men, Afghanistan is a nasty war we can never win

sw

[ixion]

10. I came to DU in early 2002

I believed it was wrong then, and I do so now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. I don't know, we had big marches against the invasion of Afghanistan in

Portland

I sure was never for it. It was a fiasco. I could envision how it could have turned out better: the allies throw out the Taliban and immediately embark on a program of economic reconstruction, using the armies of unemployed to rebuild everything that was destroyed in all the fighting. Meanwhile, experts on arid land agriculture come in and encourage the Afghans to plant crops that grow in their climate and that AREN'T opium poppies. A Gameen-bank type outfit would help widows start businesses. Secular education would be available to all, children and adults, for free, to break the monopoly of the madrassahs on education.

However, with the Bushies in charge, it could only fail. They used the real suffering of the Afghan people, especially women, under the Taliban (something that leftists had complained about for years to no avail) as a justification for their invasion. But it was all about securing land for an oil pipeline.

Oh, and by the way, after the Russians left Afghanistan, there was a civil war as the mujahadeen battled to control the country. Guess who the CIA actively supported.

Yup, you guessed it. The Taliban--they were the most well-disciplined. Well, yeah, I suppose "well-disciplined" is one way you could describe them. :-(

[Marrah_G]

23. Thank you- great post. To many people gloss over how bad the Taliban is, especially towards women.

Afghanistan could have turned out to be a great success, but as all things do under Bush.....it all turned to one great heaping steaming pile of failure.

[TahitiNut]

14. Agreed. BOTH were criminal, imho.

Neither have accomplished the PURPORTED goals - i.e. catch bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda. I've NEVER believed that either purported "goal" was EVER honestly sought. Afghanistan is about the pipeline and Iraq is about oil and a military "footprint" smack-dab in the center of the ME. Empire.

[JohnyCanuck]

15. In the end it all comes down to controlling the region's oil and natural gas

(And making sure oil sales remain denominated in US dollars)

The Invasion of Iraq: Dollar vs Euro
Re-denominating Iraqi oil in U. S. dollars, instead of the euro

by Sohan Sharma, Sue Tracy, & Surinder Kumar

SNIP

The unprovoked "shock and awe" attack on Iraq was to serve several economic purposes: (1) Safeguard the U.S. economy by re-denominating Iraqi oil in U.S. dollars, instead of the euro, to try to lock the world back into dollar oil trading so the U.S. would remain the dominant world power-militarily and economically. (2) Send a clear message to other oil producers as to what will happen to them if they abandon the dollar matrix. (3) Place the second largest oil reserve under direct U.S. control. (4) Create a subject state where the U.S. can maintain a huge force to dominate the Middle East and its oil. (5) Create a severe setback to the European Union and its euro, the only trading block and currency strong enough to attack U.S. dominance of the world through trade. (6) Free its forces (ultimately) so that it can begin operations against those countries that are trying to disengage themselves from U.S. dollar imperialism-such as Venezuela, where the U.S. has supported the attempted overthrow of a democratic government by a junta more friendly to U. S. business/oil interests.

The U.S. also wants to create a new oil cartel in the Middle East and Africa to replace OPEC. To this end the U.S. has been pressuring Nigeria to withdraw from OPEC and its strict production quotas by dangling the prospects of generous U.S. aid. Instead the U.S. seeks to promote a "U.S.-Nigeria Alignment," which would place Nigeria as the primary oil exporter to the U.S. Another move by the U.S. is to promote oil production in other African countries-Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and Angola, from where the U.S. imports a significant amount of oil-so that the oil control of OPEC is loosened, if not broken. Furthermore, the U.S. is pressuring non-OPEC producers to flood the oil market and retain denomination in dollars in an effort to weaken OPEC's market control and challenge the leadership of any country switching oil denomination from the dollar to the euro.

To break up OPEC and control the world's oil supply, it is also helpful to control Middle East and central Asiatic oil producing countries through which oil pipelines traverse. The first attack and occupation was of Afghanistan, October 2001, in itself a gas producing country, but primarily a country through which Central Asia and the Caspian Sea oil and gas will be shipped (piped) to energy-starved Pakistan and India. Afghanistan also provided an alternative to previously existing Russian pipelines. (emphasis added /JC) Simultaneously, the U.S. acquired military bases-19 of them-in the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan in the Caspian Basin, all of which are potential oil producers. After the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. controlled the natural resources of these two countries and, once again, Iraq's oil began to be traded in U.S. dollars. The UN's oil for food production program was scrapped and the U.S. Iaunched its Iraqi Assistance Fund in U.S. dollars. In December 2003, the U.S. (Pentagon) announced that it had barred French, German, and Russian oil and other companies from bidding on Iraq's reconstruction.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/Iraq_dollar_vs_euro.html

[aquart]

5. Both were and continue to be incredibly stupid ideas.

Unfortunately, we were too dumb to KEEP them as mere ideas.

So, enjoying Georgie's oil wars? How's all that cheap gas?

[NNN0LHI]

7. Even Bartcop was calling for "glassing" every last Afghan man, woman and child

That was when I stopped visiting that site.

Don

[gratuitous]

9. It was shortly after that I left, too

Bartcop wouldn't get off of torture as a legitimate tool of counterterrorism, and even though I had donated a pretty good chunk of change to his site and liked his stance on a lot of issues, I couldn't feature going any further with him down the road because of that. Too bad, really.

It's astonishing, though, how creative solutions can get when war is taken off the table as an alternative. War is usually, if not always, the equivalent of "Fuck it, let's just blast everything that moves." I've never seen it work.

[Truth2Tell]

8. Seumas Milne

nailed it in The Guardian today:

...

The war in Afghanistan, which claimed more than 6,500 lives last year, cannot be won. It has brought neither peace, development nor freedom, and has no prospect of doing so. Instead of eradicating terror networks, it has spread and multiplied them. The US plans to send 3,000 more troops in April to reinforce its existing 25,000-strong contingent, and influential thinktanks in Washington are pressing for an Iraqi-style surge. But only a vastly greater deployment could even temporarily subdue the country, and that is not remotely in prospect. The only real chance for peace in Afghanistan is the withdrawal of foreign forces as part of a wider political settlement, including the Taliban and neighbouring countries like Iran and Pakistan. But having put their credibility on the line, it seems the western powers are going to have to learn the lessons of the colonial era again and again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2252640,00.html

[ConsAreLiars]

11. Thanks for this thread, There's a link to "before" photos in a thread I posted

a few days ago. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2810550

I recommend browsing through the site referenced in that thread for any who might imagine Afghanistan as just a desert filled with CIA formed bands of homicidal religious crazies.

[Truth2Tell]

18. Thanks for that!

Spectacular view of a spectacular country. Especially the people!

Maybe someday we can make amends to these wonderful people.

[ConsAreLiars]

19. The best way to make amends would just be to stop fucking them over.

But that is as likely as expecting the corporate transnationals to serve the greater good.

"Wonderful" is true, as in eye-opening. There is much about the culture then, and even to a worse degree since the Brzezinski genocide plan began, was ruthlessly oppressive and blinded by religious delusions, but they, then at least, were an intact society where honor and respect, even for a stranger and infidel, were taken for granted.

Admirable for their mere survival in such harsh conditions, but also for their long history of resistance to foreign domination. The same ethic. You come as a guest, you will be protected. You come as a bandit, you will be our enemy until you are killed or driven out of reach.

[roody]

13. NOT PROGRESSIVE!

Progressive means peaceful and non-violent.

[fenriswolf]

16. war is social suicide

[LynnTheDem]

17. Nope.

[JohnyCanuck]

20. kick n/t

[redqueen]

21. I'm sure you don't reminding about how Kucinich was trashed

for saying we shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan.

... and the beat goes on...

[Marrah_G]

22. The Taliban never should have been lifted to power by Reagan/Bush in the first place.

But since they were, the world should have stepped in and stopped their murder and enslavement of women.

I do not think most of the world understands how horrific Taliban rule was on the women of Afgahnistan.

Imagine watching your daughter or mother or sister dying of a simple illness. Neither of you are allowed to leave the house. You are not allowed to obtain medical attention, because you are females. As she wastes away you try to feed her with the little bit dropped off by neighbors. Since you have no immediate male family members still alive after the war with Russia there is no way to earn money for food. Working is forbidden and leaving the house even to beg is forbidden. Slowly you watch your love one die....

Imagine having a college education, yet you are allowed to do nothing but keep house and have children. Your life is one of seclusion behind painted over glass. Education is forbidden, work is forbidden...

Imagine a life so bad that dousing yourself with gas and lighting yourself on fire seems like the less painful choice.....

Imagine being beaten for the sound of your footsteps being heard, beaten for accidentally showing a speck of skin, imagine being beaten for laughing, imagine being beaten for speaking to a man....imagine being killed for daring to even learn about equality for women.


Would have, could have, should have.

Hindsight is 20/20. What matters now is making sure that Afghanistan does not slip back into this way of life. The world needs to stand up and proclaim loudly that this will not be allowed to happen again.

[Disturbed]

24. The Busholini Regime could have focused on al Q.

Instead of trying to install a Puppet Govt. in Afghanistan the Busholini Regime could
have focused their entire effort upon destroying al Q & not outsourcing the task to the
Northern Alliance, which allowed the top tier of al Q to flee into Pakistan. The Afghan Invasion
was a series of screw ups. The book "Imperial Hubris" details this FUBAR. The Busholini Regime
wanted to destroy the Taleban in order to garner the natural gas of Afghanistan for US Corps. The Afghan
situation is much more complex than most people imagine. The Busholini Regime could not care any less
about the Afghani people or democracy. This Occupation is about natural gas & dominating the region.