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 Friday, August 16, 2002
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An alternative view of the war in Afghanistan
Robert Fisk of the Independent has written 2 long articles with a lot of scary details on how American actions in Afghanistan are turning many Afghans against the US. If you are interested in learning more, here are links along with excerpts:
Afghanistan is on the brink of another disaster: The Americans now leave the beatings to Afghan allies, but the CIA are there during the beatings.
It was the Special Forces man in the south who saw things a little more globally. "Perhaps the Americans can start withdrawing if there's another war – if they go to war in Iraq. But the US can't handle two wars at the same time. They would be overstretched." So to end America's "war against terror" in Afghanistan – a war that has left the drug-dealers of the Northern Alliance in disproportionate control of the Afghan government, many al-Qa'ida men on the loose and absolutely no peace in the country – we have to have another war in Iraq.
Return to Afghanistan: Americans begin to suffer grim and bloody backlash:
"The Afghan people will wait a little longer for all the help they have been promised," the local district officer in Maiwind muttered to me a few hours later. "We believe the Americans want to help us. They promised us help. They have a little longer to prove they mean this. After that ..." He didn't need to say more. Out at Maiwind, in the oven-like grey desert west of Kandahar, the Americans do raids, not aid.... As long as Washington goes on paying the private salaries of local warlords, including some who oppose President Hamid Karzai, a kind of truce will continue to exist, but Afghans take a shrewd interest in America's activities here and their anger has been stoked by US bombing raids that left hundreds of innocent Afghans dead.
It is starting to sound a lot like a place in Asia that America got involved in trying to pick winners and losers in the 1960's, notably a place where today's most aggressive hawks found ways to avoid serving.
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The war in Afghanistan in not going well
Newsweek had a cover article this week about how Al-Quaeda fighters slipped away from pursuing US troops. Buried in the article is the revelation that the war in Afghanistan is not going very well, and that we have achieved few of our objectives:
Our operational evaluation today is that the threat is a lot greater than it was in December. That is to say, the worst is ahead of us, not behind us.
At a time when leaders in Washington are agitating to move on to the next war—to remove Saddam Hussein—it’s perhaps surprising that few if any are critiquing the Afghan campaign. Criticism is deemed to be almost unpatriotic. But the Afghan war is not over, and the primary mission is not accomplished. The fledgling regime of Hamid Karzai has little power beyond the capital, and Karzai himself needs U.S. Special Forces to ensure his safety...
It surprised me to see this evaluation in the mainstream media -- it seemed the media concluded "the war is over" after the bombing of Tora Bora and the installation of American candidate Hamid Karzai as president. And it scares me that this Bush administration may well turn out to be The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, incompetent as it is secretive. It's our lives, and the lives of our children they are playing with. What do they think the long term legitimacy of president installed by America, guarded by American soldiers, is going to be in an Islamic country? What would we have said twenty years ago about an Afghan president guarded by Russian troops? This administration really is clueless.
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Richard Perle, the Prince of Darkness, is evil
In a story in today's NYT, Richard Perle, late of the Let's invade Saudi Arabia briefing flap, and currently head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, is quoted as saying:
"The failure to take on Saddam after what the president said would produce such a collapse of confidence in the president that it would set back the war on terrorism."
So now we need to invade Iraq so that the world doesn't lose faith that George W. Bush means what he says? This kind of thinking is what kept us in Vietnam for years after it was clear that no good was going to be accomplished there. Perle's statement is an evil attempt at creating a self fulfilling prophecy, by subtly attacking George W's manhood. Excuse the language, but in Junior High I heard this kind of thing all the time, expressed as "You said you'd fight him, if you don't you are a p##sy". Anybody but a moron outgrew this kind of logic, but I fear our moronic president is probably very susceptible to it. And who better to push that button but an elder from the Reagan administration.
Richard Perle is evil and scary. No wonder he is referred to as the Prince of Darkness.
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And I thought that William Saletan was funny about the Bush "economic summit"
Arianna Huffington's latest column, "The Wacko in Waco" is hilarous. It starts off:
At the behest of their charismatic leader, the cult members gathered in Waco, a hot, dusty town on the flat, featureless central Texas plain. They had been summoned to hear an endless series of droning sermons from the leader himself and his fellow fanatics.
Thunderously denouncing all doubters, all those who didn't believe as the cult members did, the speakers put forward a bizarre religious vision, one that no sane person could accept. As the hours passed, the group became more and more isolated from the real world until it was incapable of dealing with it.
The only thing missing was Janet Reno and her flamethrower.
George W. Bush's economic forum ended with the steady whoosh of departing corporate jets instead of a fiery apocalypse ...
and it just gets better from there. Highly Recommended.
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Count on Molly Ivans to tell it like it is
Molly Ivan's latest column addresses the Shrub solution to our economic problems, cutting capital gains taxes again, with some frightful statistics from Kevin Phillips' book, Wealth and Democracy:
- In 1999, the average after-tax income of the middle 60 percent of Americans was lower than in 1977.
- The 400 richest Americans between 1982 and 1999 increased their average net worth from $230 million to $2.6 billion, over 500 percent in constant dollars.
- By 1999, over one decade the average work year had expanded by 184 hours
- Less than half of all Americans have any pension plan other than Social Security.
She goes on to point out, in her indomitable style: "The health care system is falling apart in front of our eyes; schoolteachers should be paid at least twice what they make now; lack of low-income housing is making life hell for the working class; and now the right wing wants to cut taxes for the rich yet again? That's class warfare."
I wonder why Molly Ivans isn't more widely syndicated. She writes well, she is funny, and she is usually right. If you see her in person, she is even funnier than in print. She tells a great story. This column is recommended.
Thanks as usual to Tapped for the link.
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© Copyright 2002 Tim Bishop aka Geodog.
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