Obama Should Read WikiLeaks on Afghanistan

When Peacenik reads this Peacenik can only shake Peacenik's head and wonder why is Canada mixed up in this. Why is NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organzation, involved in a war in god knows where.  

Where is Afghanistan anyways? 

Has Harper read the Wikileaks leaks? What does he think? Does anyone care? This is insane. Bring the troops home now.

by Ray McGovern

Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can better understand the futility of his Afghan War strategy.

For instance, if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hidden from him Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's cables from Kabul, he might wish to search out KABUL 001892 of July 13, 2009, in which Eikenberry reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "unable to grasp the most rudimentary principles of state building."

And, while he's at it, he should dig out the September 2009 cable from the U.S. Ambassador in Pakistan, Anne Patterson, in which she warns: "There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance ... as sufficient compensation for abandoning support to these [Taliban and similar] groups in Pakistan."

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This War Can be Won, You Want Me to Believe? Rules of Engagement

punditman says...How not to win hearts and minds.

By RON JACOBS

On July 2, 2010 the US Senate 99-0 voted to spend $37 billion more dollars to fund the war in Afghanistan. Not long before that vote, the US House Appropriations Subcommittee announced that it would cut off $4 billion in US aid to Washington's client regime in Kabul, Afghanistan. The reasons cited for this decision center around the widely publicized corruption of that regime. For some reason, the subcommittee’s action was met with cheers from some elements in the moribund US antiwar movement. It's as if this attempt to blame the US-sponsored Karzai government for the corruption endemic in Afghanistan is the beginning of the end of the US assault on the Afghan people.

Of course, the exact opposite is the more likely truth. Obama's dismissal of McChrystal does not seem to be about admitting a failed policy as much as the appointment of Petraeus appears to announce that the US military plans on ramping up its bloody assault. One can call it a surge or one can call it something else, but what occurred under Petraeus' command in Iraq was simple. First, the US rules of engagement were relaxed. Then, the US provided support--tacit and active--to certain armed political factions within Iraq. These factions in turn attacked their enemies, killing thousands while dividing the nation along sectarian lines that continue to simmer. Meanwhile, US forces assisted in these endeavors by putting up concrete barriers dividing neighborhoods, and arresting and killing Iraqis who opposed the factions favored by Washington.

According to a paper published by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, some key support for the Taliban and other resistance groups in Afghanistan comes from communities "who have prisoners in the Guantanamo system." If this is the case (and it makes perfect sense), then it is also fair to assume that the upcoming escalation of the war and the accompanying increase in the arrest of insurgents will enhance this type of support, as well. Still, when one reads the current scenarios about the next few months in Afghanistan, it seems as if the war planners believe that, yes there will be an upsurge in resistance at first but that the US and its escalation will prevail. It's as if they believe the military might of the US-led forces will prevail over whatever the insurgency can put up, despite the fact that the insurgency has been able to stalemate all of the forces arrayed against it for almost ten years.

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"Americans Don’t Flinch" – They Duck!

punditman says...Canada and NATO are engaged in a war that reinforces a sense of "US exceptionalism," which doesn't go over so well in the rest of the world, particularly for the victims. This article demonstrates that U.S./NATO attacks that kill civilians are routinely excused away, and the authors over at Voices for Creative Nonviolence provide a list of several recent documented cases and their outcomes since April 2009.

 

By Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson

In accepting General McChrystal’s resignation, President Obama said that McChrystal’s departure represented a change in personnel, not a change in policy. “Americans don’t flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks.” he stated, “We persist and we persevere.” Yet, President Obama and the U.S. people don’t face up to the ugly truth that, in Afghanistan, the U.S. has routinely committed atrocities against innocent civilians. By ducking that truth, the U.S. reinforces a sense of exceptionalism, which, in other parts of the world, causes resentment and antagonism. 

While on the campaign trail and since taking office, President Obama has persistently emphasized his view that attacks against civilians are always criminal, unless the U.S. is the attacker, in which case they are justified. We heard this again, on June 23rd, as the President assured the U.S. people that we will persevere in Afghanistan. “We will not tolerate a safe haven for terrorists who want to destroy Afghan security from within, and launch attacks against innocent men, women, and children in our country and around the world.” 

When considering the security of Afghan civilians, it’s crucial to ask why, on May 12, 2009, General McChrystal was selected to replace General McKiernan as the top general in Afghanistan. News reports said it was because he had experience in coordinating special operations in Iraq. That experience involved developing death squads, planning night raids, and coordinating undercover assassinations. McChrystal proved, since his appointment, that he could organize atrocities against Afghan civilians and simultaneously present himself as a protector of Afghan civilians. In doing so, he relied on collaboration and cooperation from Defense Secretary Gates, General Petraeus and President Obama. They are united in their culpability.

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Insurgents Share a Name, but Pursue Different Goals

punditman says...punditman is posting an article from the New York times. That's probably a first. The Times has been a bastion of neo-con warmongering for as long as this man of punditry can recall. Of course, as with all corporate media, there are always exceptions. There are informative articles. This is one such piece.

Even experts have trouble keeping up with how complex the situation really is in the AfPak theatre. No surprise then, that many people do not know the difference between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, or the fact that there are real tensions between these two movements. Or, that the Afghan Taliban are a "genuine national movement," whatever we may think of them. Or that the Afghan Taliban say that their interests lie solely in Afghanistan. In fact, in a recent interview, an Afghan Taliban leader said that they “don’t have any interest in fighting against other countries.” “Our aim was, and is, to get the occupation forces out and not to get into a fight with a Muslim army,” the commander added. Many people don't realize that while the Afghan Taliban are supported by elements in Pakistan's intelligence services, it is the Pakistan Taliban who are attacking Pakistani forces and causing a lot of havoc and misery for Pakistan.

This is worse than Iraq. Western governments are deluded if they really believe they can somehow manage and control this region. When you read this, you should realize that idea has become a joke, really--something to keep in mind when you hear shallow platitudes about "staying the course" from idiotic politicians.

Punditman says that the United States and NATO face an impossible situation, which is what often happens when you invade and occupy other countries. You stir up a hornet's nest. It is one helluva mess over there.

Punditman is posting an article from the New York times.

By SCOTT SHANE

Published: October 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — As it devises a new Afghanistan policy, the Obama administration confronts a complex geopolitical puzzle: two embattled governments, in Afghanistan and Pakistan; numerous militias aligned with overlapping Islamist factions; and hidden in the factions’ midst, the foe that brought the United States to the region eight years ago, Al Qaeda.

But at the core of the tangle are the two Taliban movements, Afghan and Pakistani. They share an ideology and a dominant Pashtun ethnicity, but they have such different histories, structures and goals that the common name may be more misleading than illuminating, some regional specialists say.

“The fact that they have the same name causes all kinds of confusion,” said Gilles Dorronsoro, a French scholar of South Asia currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Read On...

What lies beneath the war in Afghanistan

punditman says...Just to show that punditman doesn't get too hung up on the "ideological purity" of every source he or Peacenik uses on this blog, punditman is posting another Eric Margolis article. Yes, Eric Margolis. Here's how his politics are described by wikipedia:

Margolis identifies his politics as "Eisenhower Republican". Though his domestic political persuasion is moderately conservative (he is a staunch anti-communist and a supporter of capitalism), Margolis' views on the Middle East are sharply at odds with the neoconservatives.

He also happens to have written some of the most insightful pieces on Middle East politics and the so-called "War on Terror" in recent years.

By ERIC MARGOLIS

Truth is war's first casualty. The Afghan war's biggest untruth is, "we've got to fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them at home."

Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements.

False. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by U.S.-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel.

Taliban, a militant religious, anti-Communist movement of Pashtun tribesmen, was totally surprised by 9/11. Taliban received U.S. aid until May, 2001. The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia's Central Asian allies.

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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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Dampening Debate

punditman says...
As Peacenik muses about Apocalypse 2012, and the end of whatever, Punditman has been pondering more mundane matters, such as the stifling of debate on all the stuff that we still have to deal with before December 21, 2012.

Punditman thinks that on December 22, 2012, there's a good chance we'll still be dealing with stuff like this. It's the kind of thing that drives punditman bonkers. If you think you live in a free society, then read, watch, listen to, or attend a debate. Any debate. Chances are, you will not get the spectrum of opinion that you would hope a truly free society would offer. The panel discussion I refer to is one that took place at the Brookings Institute on August 25 concerning Afghanistan, and it is summarized by author Robert Dreyfuss. The self-described "nonpartisan public policy organization" presented four panelists who were all hawks. None of them questioned the legitimacy of the war. Only how to win it, and how long it would take. That's a friggin' debate?!

A debate is supposed to involve opposing arguments. To quote Michael Palin in Monty Python's Argument Sketch, "An argument is a collective series of statements intended to establish a proposition." Aparently the so-called "liberal" Brookings Institute is not the right room for an argument.

You might find diversity of opinion in some obscure panel discussion in some back water college somewhere or on some internet radio show that has twenty-seven loyal listeners. Or you may find a bunch of people agreeing with themselves there as well.

The point that punditman is trying to make is that when it comes to the big issues of our times, such as war, terrorism, Iran, civil liberties, swine flu or rising beer prices, you are being bamboozled into a type of fascist groupthink by Big Media and Big Experts from Big Institutes.

Sure there are debates-- fake ones that is, where "opposing" viewpoints are presented, but in reality, it's just a bunch of elitists and politicians screaming over top of one another for entertainment value (afterwards, the rivals can be spotted in the pub next to the studio congratulating each other on their performances and caring nothing of rising beer prices).

As Noam Chomsky and others of his ilk have been saying for years, despite the myth of a free and open "marketplace of ideas," the framework for debate within most democracies has always been relatively narrow when it comes to the big issues, compared to the potential. The reasons have to do with profit, advertising revenue, self-censorship and concentratrion of media ownership. Now this may seem counter-intuitive in the internet age, but punditman intuits that despite the abundance of new media, a narrowing of opinion on crucial matters is more evident than ever before.

Observe the following statements:

The war in Afghanistan is a war of necessity and a noble cause.
Terrorists hate us because of our freedom.
Iran is a monolothic Islamofascist state intent on nuking Israel.
Swine flu is a dangerous pandemic that requires everyone to be vaccinated even if we don't have time to safety-test the vaccine.
Beer prices need to rise because...ummm, rising costs or something...

Whether you agree with any or all of these statements or not, ask yourself whether you think the counterpoint to each of these statements gets a fair shake.

Obama's War: Afghanistan Is Spelled V-I-E-T-N-A-M

Peacenik is sick and tired of Obama's necessary war. Will someone remind Peacenik of why it is necessary? Some terrorists supposedly set up camp in Afghanistan and then may have had some involvement with 911. The terrorists camps were wiped out. Why is it necessary to pacify a county that history tells us cannot be pacified. Another 911 could be orchestrated from any country. Is the U.S. going to invade and occupy any country where a terrorist attack is planned. Face it, terrorists could be in Canada, planning an attack. What's the U.S. going to do?

The terrorist camps no longer exist in Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO and Canada should have exited long ago. The occupation of Afghanistan is not impeding the terrorist cause. But it is helping to bankrupt The U.S. and Canada. That's right, no health care for North America, there are bombs to be dropped. Peacenik says bring the troops home now.

by Dave Lindorff

President Barack Obama has staked his presidency on winning his “necessary” war in Afghanistan. Coming into office, one of his first acts, on Feb. 18, was to boost US troop levels in that country by 17,000, bringing the total number of soldiers and Marines in the country to about 57,000, to which one must also add about 33,000 other soldiers from NATO countries and Australia. That’s 100,000 foreign soldiers fighting against Taliban fighters.

Ominously, even with the new US troops, US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen this month has described the situation in Afghanistan as being “serious and deteriorating.” The Afghani national government—if an organization that is basically confined to the capital city of Kabul and a few other cities can be called a national government, is hopelessly corrupt and ineffective, and a current national election, which US forces sought to “protect” by sending troops to election districts, appears to have been a disaster, plagued by vote rigging and with low turnout.

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Scott Horton Interviews Gareth Porter

punditman says...Punditman is back and he has noticed that Afghanistan is headlining the news a lot lately. The war is going badly; the election a mess. As usual, Scott Horton and Gareth Porter help cut through the fog.

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for Inter Press Service, discusses how Afghan election violence is a portent of things to come, Hamid Karzai’s lead in the “vote for me or I’ll burn down your house” category, Afghan warlords preparing to stuff ballot boxes and how U.S. claims that Iran is supplying arms to Iraq ignore the vibrant Middle East black market.

MP3 here. (27:37)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and journalist. His articles appear on the Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and on Antiwar.com.

When the Dead Have No Say

punditman says...In today's Toronto Star, army groupie, Rosie Dimanno, who, by recollection, never met a military intervention she didn't applaud, paints a fairly rosy picture of the new Canadian/US/NATO strategy in Afghanistan. The article outlines the admitted problems with the previous undermanned strategy, but now that the Yanks have landed in big numbers, we are led to believe that things are looking up! It's all thanks to a new "...strategic shift ordered by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of all NATO forces in Afghanistan, which puts the emphasis on populated areas in order to separate the Taliban from the people." Just train up those Afghan army units, and stability is on the way.

Sure, in the year 2525.

Unfortunately, with their whack-a-mole strategy, the Yanks have proven—from Vietnam to Iraq—to be piss-poor imperialists. What makes any rational observer think they will somehow get it right in Afghanistan of all places—graveyard of empires? The US and NATO can neither win nor lose in Afghanistan. Is endless war something to cheer about? Don't ask the dead.

by Norman Solomon
www.antiwar.com

Official Washington is buzzing about "metrics." Can the war in Afghanistan be successful?

Don’t ask the dead.

Days ago, under the headline "White House Struggles to Gauge Afghan Success," a New York Times story made a splash. "As the American military comes to full strength in the Afghan buildup, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won."

Don’t ask the dead. They don’t count.

The Times article went on: "Those ‘metrics’ of success, demanded by Congress and eagerly awaited by the military, are seen as crucial if the president is to convince Capitol Hill and the country that his revamped strategy is working."

Don’t ask the dead. They won’t have a say.

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CNN Poll: US Support for Afghan War Plummeting

punditman says...Perhaps there is hope after all. Americans are waking up to a new/old quagmire: "Oh yeah. ..Afghanistan, thanks for reminding us, Mr. President. We think it's a mess. Please tell us when we can leave." Obama may find himself in Lyndon Johnson's shoes soon enough. Instead of, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?", try this: "Hey, hey, Barak, how many kids did you zap today?"

Where do Canadians stand on the ongoing debacle? Has anyone seen a recent poll lately?

By Jason Ditz

www.antiwar.com

Following July’s record death tolls, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll shows that US popular support for the war is also at an all-time low, with 54 percent of respondents opposed to the ongoing war and 41 percent in favor.

This was a monumental change from the May version of the same poll. which showed 50 percent in favor of the war and only 48 percent against. President Obama has made escalating the war the centerpiece of his foreign policy campaign.

The finding was largely in keeping with an AP-GfK poll released late last month, which also showed growing opposition to both wars, and a 53-44 percent split on the Afghan war. This poll too showed a strong split along party lines, with most Republicans supporting the continued conflict and the vast majority of Democrats opposed.

While opposition to the Iraq War has been significant for years, it is only recently that opinion on the nearly eight-year long Afghan conflict is starting to shift. Ironically, it is perhaps President Obama’s desire to escalate the war that has made it significant enough to catch the attention of an increasing number of Americans, and sparked the growing war exhaustion the polls are now showing.

War Without Purpose

punditman says...This article by Chris Hedges outlines the utter disaster that is the Afghan War. The word quagmire comes to mind. Punditman has said from the beginning that you don't fight terrorists with armies who call in airstrikes that destroy villages full of civilians, or by pushing a button on the other side of the world that causes some drone to instantly vaporize people who did nothing to harm you. It's madness. But that is what armies do. Right from the beginning, the whole Afghanistan intervention, with its changing, nebulus justifications has turned into a series of blunders, scandals and slaughters.

Unfortunately, there is not much left of the antiwar movement because too many people think Afghanistan is a "good war" (unlike Iraq). The Obama Effect has essentially anesthetized critical thought. Was the movement against the Iraq War just an anti-Bush movement? You begin to wonder. Alex Cockburn over at counterpunch, sums up the pathetic state of the antiwar movement, thusly:

Where are the mobilizations, actions, civil disobedience? Antiwar coalitions like United for Peace and Justice and Win Without War (with MoveOn also belatedly adopting this craven posture) don’t say clearly “US troops out now!” from Afghanistan. They whine about the “absence of a clear mission” (Win Without War), plead futilely for “an exit strategy” (UFPJ). One letter from the UFPJ coalition (which includes Code Pink) to the Congressional Progressive Caucus in May laconically began a sentence with the astounding words, “To defeat the Taliban and stabilize the country, the U.S. must enable the Afghan people…”

To "defeat" the Taliban? With a peace movement like that, who needs a war movement? No wonder the war drags on and on. Even Western politicians have begun calls for negotiating our way out of this ill conceived mess.

By Chris Hedges

Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq.

The cost of the Afghanistan war is rising. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded. July has been the deadliest month in the war for NATO combatants, with at least 50 troops, including 26 Americans, killed. Roadside bomb attacks on coalition forces are swelling the number of wounded and killed. In June, the tally of incidents involving roadside bombs, also called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hit 736, a record for the fourth straight month; the number had risen from 361 in March to 407 in April and to 465 in May. The decision by President Barack Obama to send 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan has increased our presence to 57,000 American troops. The total is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009. It will only mean more death, expanded fighting and greater futility.

We have stumbled into a confusing mix of armed groups that include criminal gangs, drug traffickers, Pashtun and Tajik militias, kidnapping rings, death squads and mercenaries. We are embroiled in a civil war. The Pashtuns, who make up most of the Taliban and are the traditional rulers of Afghanistan, are battling the Tajiks and Uzbeks, who make up the Northern Alliance, which, with foreign help, won the civil war in 2001. The old Northern Alliance now dominates the corrupt and incompetent government. It is deeply hated. And it will fall with us.

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Massive US Assault to Seize Taleban Heartland

Peacenik thinks this surge is delusional. Memories of Vietnam. No one in all of history has tamed Afghanistan. The supposed plan is to stabilize the country before presidental elections in August.

How do you stabilize a country that is composed of different areas ruled by war lords? The current president can't even control Kabul, the capital. Let's accept the fact that the US is in Afghanistan for geopolitical reasons, not humanitarian reasons. If a strongman existed, any strongman, who could control the country, the US would support that person. Why is Canada still supporting a US imperial misadventure. Why did I forget that question mark? Bring the Canadian troops home now.

by Tom Coghlan

Thousands of US Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the first major military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency with an assault deep into Taleban-held territory.

Operation Khanjar, which the Marines call simply "the decisive op", is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, a heartland of the Taleban insurgency and the world's biggest heroin producing region.

It is the biggest operation launched by the US Marines Corps since the retaking of Fallujah in 2004 and seeks to break the grinding stalemate between Nato forces and the Taleban in the province.

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Should the US also Suppress Evidence of Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan?

The simple truth is the "allied forces" in Afghanistan don't care who they kill, or how many they kill. Watch the embedded video. Lieberman and Graham have been front and centre on the tv defending neo con policies, actions and consequences for more than a decade. Peacenik first heard of Lieberman when he criticized Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinski. WOW. Peacenik knows how these hypocrits keep getting elected, but Peacenik still can't believe it. Has anything changed? Did a Democrat get elected President? Do Democrats control both houses of congress? And lets not forget Canada's unfortunate role. How many Afghani "citizens" have been killed by Canadian troops? Peacenik says its time to exit Afghanistan. Bring the troops home now.

by Glenn Greenwald

Something that has happened repeatedly in Afghanistan over the last eight years happened yet again this week:

After U.S. Strike, Dispute Over Afghan Deaths

KABUL, Afghanistan - Sharply conflicting reports on an American airstrike this week continued to trickle out Friday from American military and Afghan officials as to whether the attack killed civilians.

The airstrike in Ghor Province in western Afghanistan Tuesday had targeted a local Taliban militant, Mullah Mustafa, but instead killed 10 civilians and 12 insurgents, according to Sayed Iqbal Munib, the governor of Ghor Province.

But American officials Friday said the strike killed up to 16 militants and no civilians.

I obviously don't know what the truth is about this latest incident, but let's assume just for the sake of argument that -- as has been true so many times before -- it is the claim of local Afghan officials, rather than the U.S. military, that is accurate, and Afghan civilians, once again, really were killed by our airstrike.

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As Wars' Death Toll Passes 5,000, Military Families Urge President Obama to Bring All Our Troops Home Now

Nationwide - June 3 - As the nation awaits confirmation from the Pentagon of the 5,000^th death of a U.S. service member in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, members of Military Families Speak Out are mourning the dead and calling on President Obama to honor the sacrifices of these service members and their families and honor all of those who serve by acting swiftly to end both wars.

Warren Henthorn of Choctaw, OK, the father of Army Spc. Jeffrey Henthorn who died in Iraq on Feb 8, 2005, says:

"Way too many have died on all sides of these wars. If I remember correctly, President Obama won the Democratic nomination based on the promise to end the war in Iraq. But, between Iraq and Afghanistan, at the end of this year we will actually have more troops in harm's way then we did at the height of the 'surge.' That's just as bad as we had it under President Bush. These wars now belong to President Obama. The blood is on his hands."

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Peacenik says that the Afghanistan invasion was about 8 years ago. Other than death and destruction what has been accomplished? All the promises? Lies. By any and every metric the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are pointless failures. Bring the troops home now.

Canadian Military Plans to Spam Afghans This Summer

Canadian military propagandists plan to bombard Afghans' cellphones with texts and contest offers

by Allan Woods

OTTAWA - Canada plans to boost its propaganda reach by tapping into mobile phones in Afghanistan to send text messages, run contests and drive listeners to its military-run, Pashto-language radio station.

It's a fairly crude, transparent tactic in the high science of counter-insurgency, but the military sees it as a way to better connect with local Afghans in a war-torn land where the cellphone is one of the fastest growing, and only reliable, means of communication.

The capability, to be set up this summer, will encourage Afghans to sign up for text-message alerts from defence officials and to enter military-run contests awarding prizes to lucky locals, according to public tendering documents.

Read on...

Ferchrissakes. What is more ridiculous? Waging this propaganda in the first place or publicizing it via a publicly tendered bid? Can someone tell Peacenik what Canada is doing in Afghanistan? Can someone tell Peacenik why Canada is in Afghanistan? Canada doesn't know who the "enemy" is and doesn't know if they are killing civilians or "enemies." Canada can't afford the cost of the war effort. And now the Afspamistan campaign? Give Peacenik a break! Will Tim Horton coffees be the prizes? This is worse than goofy. It illustrates the obvious: Canada should not be in Afghanistan. Bring the troops home now.

Saigon Again?

By Philip Giraldi

www.antiwar.com

The problem with assessing President Barack Obama’s foreign policy after little more than 100 days is that it is nearly impossible to distinguish what has already become policy from approaches that might be termed more tentative. Does he really think that a continued American engagement in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and on behalf of Israel serves the national interest? Maybe not. There are signs that a broad reassessment of U.S. policy is underway, though critics who have been rightly soured by eight years of George W. Bush’s blundering note that Obama appears to have embraced the interventionist formula that has proven so disastrous. Nation-building will not work in Afghanistan, and interference in neighboring Pakistan has produced a nuclear country that is self-destructing. Taking the two countries together, it is clear that Central Asia has become the poster child for U.S. foreign policy ineptitude.

The Bush administration’s tendency to try to sell an otherwise questionable foreign policy continues. President Obama’s pledge after last week’s meeting with the Pakistani and Afghan presidents that he is dedicated to defeating al-Qaeda was intended to push a button with the American audience. He knows perfectly well that al-Qaeda has become a minor player in the Central Asian drama and that the problem is much larger than the terrorist group that carried out 9/11. To be fair to Obama, it should be accepted that the Bush administration created the Afghanistan and Pakistan crisis that he has inherited. Obama has questioned existing policies even though he has increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by only half the number requested by the Pentagon. He has also increased the intensity of Predator drone strikes directed against Taliban and al-Qaeda inside Pakistan. He would be well advised to think yet again about what he is doing.

The increase in soldiers will not win the day, and would not even if it were double the number being committed, because the Afghan topography means the U.S. has to rely on air power, which leads to high civilian casualties and has turned the Afghan people against the NATO mission. More important, the narco-trafficking-fueled corruption in the Karzai government is so pervasive that Afghans have lost any hope that their lot will ever improve. Without that, the insurgency, which at least offers stability, will inevitably win, and the American GI will follow his British and Russian counterparts in the graveyard of empires. There is no reason to believe that allowing a government that includes the Taliban in Afghanistan threatens the United States. Quite the contrary, as the Taliban are not interested in exporting any revolution and are intensely inward-looking. They will also likely have learned the lesson of 2001 and will know that their support of any international terrorist movements will result in a devastating response from the United States. Obama could stay a while to save face, put a Band-Aid on the situation, and then get out while there is still an option to do so. The Afghans will sort out their own future just as they always have. If it is not a free-market, pluralistic, democratic future, then so be it.

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punditman says...

Punditman does not pretend that if NATO troops withdraw from the AfPak theatre, all will be peace and light. The question is, would the death, destruction and misery be any worse than that of an unwinnable foreign intervention? Or would things sort of muddle along at a lower level of conflict as the various forces jockey for power? Those who say you must support the troops by supporting their mission rarely offer a realistic assessment of the dire situation in Afghanistan and South Asia—let alone a "winning" scenario. They are content to follow whatever their government tells them until hell freezes over. Punditman thinks that they often secretly think this war is unwinnable but won't admit it. Or perhaps they believe in the magical military mystery tour?

Sometimes the only option is to choose the least worst choice. And that, it seems, is to stop messing with an already messy situation that the West is ill equipped to fix—much less truly understand—and come up with a plan for military withdrawal from South Asia. Unless of course the plan is for perpetual war as the domestic economy implodes. Other empires have known such folly. They now help form the ashheaps of history.

How Do You Ask a Man to Be the Last Man to Die for a Mistake in Afghanistan?

Posted by ZP Heller, Brave New Films at 1:51 PM on April 23, 2009.

Brave Afghan vet demands answers from Congress.

What happened today in Washington was, as Senator Russ Feingold called it, "historic." Thirty-eight years nearly to the day when a young John Kerry shocked the nation with his fiery anti-Vietnam war testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rick Reyes, a former US Marine Corporal, delivered an equally puissant testimony in which he expressed his disenchantment with the war in Afghanistan. How appropriate Kerry should be sitting directly across from Reyes as Committee Chairman, listening attentively as Congress heard one of the first major voices of dissent on this war.

The son of Mexican immigrants who joined the Marines to escape a violent gang life in Los Angeles, Reyes served as an infantry rifleman in Afghanistan and Iraq. He upheld his duty to serve our country honorably, and immediately after 9/11, he was deployed to Afghanistan "with the conviction of fighting for justice and the American way." All of that changed when Reyes realized US military forces faced the impossible task of fighting militant Taliban members who blended in with the local Afghan population, routinely resulting in the injuries or deaths of innocent civilians.

Read on...

Enough is Enough. Peacenik says bring the troops home now.

Scott Horton Interviews Michael Hastings

www.antiwar.com

Michael Hastings, author of the article “Obama’s War” in GQ Magazine, discusses the skepticism among some high-ranking military officers about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, the inevitability of diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban, the permeation of Afghan society by the drug trade and the frightening talk about a 25 year U.S. committment to Afghanistan and the broader region.

MP3 here. (28:16)

Michael Hastings is the author of I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story.

punditman says...

Will US internal economic collapse determine the future of the Afghan mission? Will the US emulate the Soviet experience? As Mark Twain once said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Punditman concurs: it will be the same but different.

A Soldier’s Soul Screams ‘Get Out’

posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 04/06/2009 @ 12:14pm

Last week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus held its second of six scheduled forums on Afghanistan. It was the first non-classified public forum on Capitol Hill to address the Obama Administration's newly released Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) -- a Vietnam Veteran and former chief of staff for Secretary Colin Powell -- offered some powerful words of caution.

"My soldier's soul screams at me to get out," Wilkerson said. "Part of that is some 38,000 names on a Wall that I do not fail to visit twice a year every year for the last 25 years….Counterinsurgency is not a very optimal experience. It rarely is won, it rarely results in what we might call a viable civility, prosperity and dignity. Look at Iraq right now… We never solved the problems in the Gulf."

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Colonel Wilkerson was a fairly constant critic of the Bush foreign policy. Unfortunately he still has a role, as a critic of Obama's foreign policy. Everyone assumes Wilkerson is speaking for Colin Powell. It would be nice if the discredited Powell would come out on his own and denounce the Iraq and Afghanistan mistakes. Neither follows the Powell doctrine. Peacenik agrees with Wilkerson. It is time for Canada to get out of Afghanistan. Bring the troops home now.