Chest deep in Afghan quagmire

punditman says...

Punditman is not convinced there is any strategy that will "win" in Afghanistan. But we are being told by the geniuses in charge that to "win" will require much greater sacrifice on the part of Western forces. Many more troops, troops in close contact with the population, troops at greater risk, sustaining much greater casualities. Supposedly the generals and politicians have the hearts and minds thing all figured out this time around.

Meanwhile, the lack of a robust anti-Afghan War movement indicates that most people in the West seem resigned to permanent war and a permanent war economy as long as our side is doing most of the killing and other people are doing most of the dying. It ill be ironic, indeed, if the only thing that brings the Afghan debacle to some kind of half-assed negotiated conclusion is Obama's planned escalation, which finally awakens the "peaceniks" from their Obamatized slumber. Is punditman making any sense? More coffee, please.

Thomas Walkom

The Afghan war was a mistake from the beginning. Its justification was flawed, its intent confused, its implementation half-hearted.

That's why the bleak picture painted by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the man in charge of NATO forces in Afghanistan should come as no surprise.

In a report made public this week, McChrystal articulated the obvious: Things are getting worse; the war is going nowhere.

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Miss Obama's peacenik T-shirt sends a message to G8 leaders

Peacenik posts this story without comment.

By Charlotte Spratt
Last updated at 9:35 AM on 09th July 2009

Her father had just won agreement from the Russians to cut back on the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

And Barack Obama's eldest daughter was obviously keen to make her own statement on the issue - even if it was merely a fashion statement.

Just 48 hours after the U.S. President signed agreements with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to reduce weapon stores, 11-year-old Malia Obama was spotted wearing not one, but two T-shirts with an anti-nuclear message.

Read on...

The Next Forgotten War

By Ryan McCarl
www.antiwar.com

Human beings have strong emotional immune systems, and human societies have a remarkable capacity for collective forgetfulness. Milan Kundera, writing of the effect of the news cycle on historical memory, once said: "The bloody massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered the memory of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the war in the Sinai desert made people forget Allende, the Cambodian massacre made people forget Sinai, and so on and so forth until ultimately everyone lets everything be forgotten."

Likewise, the histories of our time might say: there was an American invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that amounts to a crime, but it was quickly followed by other wars, a financial crisis, and an economic depression – and we found that we had enough problems on our plate without worrying too much about the past.

Americans are leaving the Iraq War behind; it is seen as an embarrassing episode, best unmentioned in polite company. The Obama administration is stacked with liberal hawks who supported the Iraq War, and figures from the former Bush administration are signing book deals and making the rounds of press conferences and interviews, propagating meae culpae of the "mistakes were made" sort. A war of choice is being quietly transformed into an unfortunate but ultimately unavoidable mistake, one caused not by politicians and public intellectuals cocooned in their hubris and their reckless ideologies, but by an "intelligence failure."

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punditman says...
Punditman realizes that there are those out there who have bought the media nonsense that the "surge" in Iraq has been a "success," and because that same media now conveniently turns its gaze elsewhere, then the war itself must be a "success." But it isn't. The tragedy that is Iraq will continue to play out one way or another whether or not the world pays attention. And if all its victims on all sides are forgotten, then repeating unjust wars will happen over and over. This article challenges peaceniks everywhere to show that the Iraq war would have been a mistake even if it were a "success."

There's Something Happening Here

What it is, Is exactly clear

by Peacenik

Peacenik wonders whatever happened to the post cold war peace we were all supposed to enjoy. The world is more chaotic now than at any time for decades, with dangerous conflicts wherever one looks.

The conflict in Georgia raged on while George Bush played beach volleyball at the Olympics and Condoleezza Rice was on vacation and nowhere to be seen. Charitably, she was reported to have made some phone calls. Making phone calls is hard work. Heck of a job, George and Condi.

To help Peacenik try to make sense of what is happening, he read some sites that are noted below. The article from Globalresearch highlights an ominous buildup of US forces in the Persian Gulf. It's hard to believe that this doesn't have some purpose other than burning tons of fuel while tooling around the Gulf.

The posts from Boomantribune, Slate and Dailykos all try to make sense of the Russia -Georgia conflict. There are lots of issues: an oil and gas pipeline to Europe, accusations of Georgian ethnic cleansing in the pro-Russian territory of Ossetia, Bush's empty promise to the Georgians that they would not stand alone on their path to freedom and democracy, Georgia's imminent joining of NATO and Russia's total lack of respect for, and fear of, the near toothless United States.

And in case we forget the origins of Bush's failed foreign policy, there is a new report out from the Rand Corporation that says the US is all wrong in its approach to fighting the war on terror. Read it all, then you and Peacenik will at least have an inkling as to why the world seems to be going to hell.

Oh yeah, and while you're reading, have CNN on in the background and listen to the warmongers and politicians try to outdo each other in demanding an escalation of the conflict. Peace seems to to be an alien concept in the testosterone driven world of what passes for public discourse. That much is clear.

It’s Time to Promote Peace in Afghanistan

By John W. Warnock

Global Research, March 30, 2008
actupinsask.org

In Canada the debate on Afghanistan has had a very narrow focus. The primary concern has been the role of the Canadian Forces in the counter-insurgency war. How many more Canadians will be killed? How long will our forces be in Kandahar province? What will the U.S. government think if Canada withdraws from the southern zone of conflict? If Canada pulls its forces out of Afghanistan, will there be chaos?

It is time for Canadians to consider what the Afghan people want. At the top of the list would certainly be an end to the death, destruction and despair, the other 3-D policy. A variety of surveys show at least 70% of Afghans do not want to see a return of the dreaded Taliban. Yet an even larger percentage supports a negotiated settlement with the Taliban to end the war. The U.S.-NATO policy, supported by recent Canadian governments, perpetuates the war.

Outside of Canada there is widespread understanding that the counter insurgency war is not working. This past year was the most destructive since the U.S. invasion, with at least 6200 Afghans killed, a 24% increase in roadside bombs, and a dramatic increase in suicide bombs. The United Nations, as well as U.S. and U.K. military leaders, report that the zone of operation of the insurgents is spreading. Attacks are now up to 550 per month.

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punditman says...Unfortunately, Ottawa's prime concern in Afghanistan appears to be the butt-kissing idea of following the failed US strategy of counter-insurgent warfare.

U.S. peace activists say Canada setting dangerous precedent keeping them out

WASHINGTON - Canada is setting a "dangerous" precedent by refusing entry to Americans convicted of misdemeanours during peaceful anti-Iraq protests, say two women who couldn't cross the border this week.

The high-profile activists, who are listed in an FBI database called the National Crime Information Center, say they were detained for more than two hours Wednesday at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ont., before being turned away.

"First, the FBI should not have put us on that list," Ann Wright, a retired army veteran, told a news conference Thursday outside the Canadian Embassy.

"And secondly, the Canadian government should not be doing the dirty political intimidation work for the Bush administration by using that database."

Full article...

punditman says...In the name of security, this type of abuse of power and misdirection of resources is happening on both sides of the US-Canadian border. It will continue unless people get off their keesters and stand up for their rights.