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Afghanistan: Propping up
an already failed state
By Ben Tanosborn
ccun.org, May 29, 2008
Europeans live in a fantasy world if they think that this fall
election in the US will change anything with respect to America’s
military demands on NATO. Joseph Lieberman, the pro-war US
senator, and chief advocate in Congress for Israel’s hawkish
government, said as much a couple of months ago as he stressed the
cross-party American position on Afghanistan. Europe, said the
2000 Democratic vice-presidential candidate, can be assured that
either of the two Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama
and Hillary Clinton, have the same exact policy on Afghanistan.
Of course, there is nothing we need to say about Bush-Twin, and
Republican presidential candidate – short on brains and long on
warmongering, John McCain.
American and NATO troops trying to keep Karzai’s regime alive in
Afghanistan probably number four or five times the number of
fighting Taliban, although foreign fighters from Chechnya, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan and several other Arab-Muslim countries, add to the
professional insurgency. And pro-Taliban part-timers, outraged
by the helter-skelter attitude on Afghan lives by foreigners – such
as the Shinwar Massacre committed by Americans in the Nangrahar
province – are starting to make a measurable difference in the
overall effectiveness of the insurgency.
Two weeks ago, Mingo, my European journalist friend, who had
returned to Afghan lands in March after an absence of over two
years, gave me a debriefing on how things measure up after this
period. “Ben,” he said, “America’s puppet, Karzai, continues
to be for all practical purposes the Mayor of Kabul, and not the
president of Afghanistan, exercising influence on his countrymen
solely on the distribution of foreign aid to the provinces.
The perception by Afghans, whether they live in Herat, Kabul or
Kendahar, is that all these billions in purported aid have not
improved their lives a bit, and most of them – other than those
benefiting from the poppy trade – have a clear and nostalgic view of
the Taliban regime.”
Mingo was in Kabul last month, and happened to be an eyewitness to
the attempt on Karzai’s life. His local host made what
appeared to be a prophetic statement: Afghans will likely be
celebrating within four or five years, perhaps sooner, the
liberation of the country from the US and its misnamed “coalition.”
The celebration will replace, according to his host, the current
April 27 military parade, where the attempt on Karzai’s life
occurred; now the most important national holiday, it commemorates
the nation’s liberation from Soviet occupation.
Last February, during the 44th Munich Security Conference, Robert
Gates, America’s mild-mannered, but just as hawkish as his
predecessor Pentagon warlords, gave to the NATO members, in spades,
the unmasked and bitter-tasting truth, demanding a “fair
distribution of the burden” when it came to the propping up of
military defenses in Afghanistan, referring to the resistance by
some NATO members, Germany for one, to bear a proportionate share of
the fighting and dying. America (or rather its ruling elite)
just won’t tolerate a “two-tiered alliance.” Poor Jung,
Germany’s Gates’ counterpart; he quickly learned that it was of
little value that Germany had warned the US six years before of
military adventurism. Yep, we all remember how the “criminal
wit” of then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was utilized to
denigrate “old Europe.”
Since surrendering to American demands is not such a popular thing
in Germany, but since such surrendering is a must, confidential
discussions and negotiations must be done sub Rosa… and according to
Der Spiegel Germany has agreed to increase its troop presence from
3,500 to 4,500. Not that it will make a scintilla of
difference according to Mingo; nor will the additional British help.
A junior British officer summed up to my friend the ideological
consensus of the NATO troops serving in Afghanistan: “The Yanks
indiscriminately start all these wars, and then the bloody bastards
expect us to help, always calling on that card without expiration
that calls for a pay-back on the help they offered in WW’s I and II.
One would think that that kind of rationalization would be stale by
now. As it is the idiocy spouted by Washington that the
American ‘war against terror’ is helping to keep Europe safe, as
evidenced by the 2004 and 2005 bombings of Madrid and London… in
both cases retribution for US war policies in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
And here we are on Memorial Day with the biggest Hun of them all,
George W. Bush, telling the country that “America’s freedoms come at
great cost.” But propping up Afghanistan, or Iraq, has nothing
to do with our freedoms… or with theirs.
Ben
Tanosborn
www.tanosborn.com
ben@tanosborn.com
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