Afghanistan

HELL COMES HOME
By Robert C. Koehler | Tribune Media Services

it certainly reflects the ignorance and arrogance of militarism, which perpetually organizes itself around an “enemy” somewhere out there stalking us. Those trapped in this mindset can imagine security only in relation to their power over this enemy, which leads them, and everyone else, into a vicious spiral of armed preparation, violence and counter-violence. What we fail to notice in our rage and fear is that violence — not the violence we endure but the violence we perpetrate — dehumanizes us. Killing is the ultimate traumatic experience. “In the military, you’re trained to shoot at a target, but sometimes the humanity of that target intrudes, and people come to question what they’ve done,” said Dr. Shira Maguen (putting it, I would say, mildly).

There’s no armor, it turns out, for conscience.

So our men and women are coming home from the killing fields wounded in their heads, used up, greeted only by the military’s own meat grinder of inadequate health care and intolerance for “weakness.”

“Frankly, in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I’ve never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness.” This is what whistleblower psychiatrist Kernan Manion wrote recently to President Obama about his experience counseling Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, as reported by Salon.

In September, Manion, having been told to “cease and desist all further correspondence with the government,” was fired by the Navy for his urgent, outspoken communiqués about the mental-health minefield the military has on its hands.

The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give (But Won't)
By Tom Engelhardt | Tom Dispatch.com

Sure, the quote in the over-title is only my fantasy. No one in Washington -- no less President Obama -- ever said, "This administration ended, rather than extended, two wars," and right now, it looks as if no one in an official capacity is likely to do so any time soon. It's common knowledge that a president -- but above all a Democratic president -- who tried to de-escalate a war like the one now expanding in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, and withdraw American troops, would be so much domestic political dead meat.

This everyday bit of engrained Washington wisdom is, in fact, based on not a shred of evidence in the historical record. We do, however, know something about what could happen to a president who escalated a counterinsurgency war: Lyndon Johnson comes to mind for expanding his inherited war in Vietnam out of fear that he would be labeled the president who "lost" that country to the communists (as Harry Truman had supposedly "lost" China). And then there was Vice President Hubert Humphrey who -- incapable of rejecting Johnson's war policy -- lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, a candidate pushing a fraudulent "peace with honor" formula for downsizing the war.

Still, we have no evidence about how American voters would deal with a president who didn't take the Johnson approach to a losing war. The only example might be John F. Kennedy, who reputedly pushed back against escalatory advice over Vietnam, and certainly did so against his military high command during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In both cases, however, he acted in private, offering quite a different face to the world.

We know that there would be those on the right, and quite a few war-fightin' liberals as well, who would go nuclear over any presidential minus option in Afghanistan. Many of them will, in fact, do so over anything less than the McChrystal plan anyway. And we know that a media storm would certainly follow. But when it comes to how voters would react, especially at a moment when unhappiness with the Afghan War (as well as the president's handling of it) is on the rise, there is no historical evidence.

Sometime in the reasonably near future, President Obama will undoubtedly address the American people on whatever decision he makes about the war in Afghanistan. Every sign indicates that he will hew to Washington's political wisdom about what a war president can do in this country.

Ever since late September when someone leaked Afghan War commander General Stanley McChrystal's report to the president on the disastrous situation in Afghanistan and the counterinsurgency war he wants to wage there, we've been all but living inside Obama's endless comprehensive review of war strategy. After all, we get daily reports from "the front," largely in the form of a flood of leaks to the media, on just what's being considered -- from General McChrystal's estimated troop escalation numbers, to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's private cables to the president suggesting no more troops be sent, to recent outbursts by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the president decrying all the leaks and rumors. Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

If you are sitting in class taking a test, and you’ve chosen to sit amongst your bone-headed, slacker friends, don’t turn to them for help when you can’t figure out of any of the answers. They may all tell you the same thing, but they’ll all be wrong.

That’s the situation President Obama finds himself in today in the White House. Having surrounded himself with the very Wall Street con men who set up the crooked game that led to the current financial crisis and economic collapse, and finding that the lousy advice they have been giving him since last January has left the country still mired in deepening economic decline, with the banks still not lending and unemployment still mounting, and with growing signs that instead of bottoming out and starting to recover, the economy is threatening to fall a second time, to new lows and higher unemployment, Obama has turned to the same rotten advisors for answers.

Nato chief promises Afghanistan will get 'substantially more forces'
By Julian Borger | Guardian.co.UK

Nato and its allies will order "substantially more forces" into battle in Afghanistan over the next few weeks, the alliance's secretary general said today.

Speaking in Edinburgh at a Nato parliamentary assembly meeting, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said: "In a few weeks, I expect we will decide, in Nato, on the approach, and troop levels needed, to take our mission forward."

Barack Obama is expected to make a long-awaited declaration on US troop levels and strategy in the next few days. But Rasmussen pre-empted the president by predicting the alliance as a whole would pursue a broad counter-insurgency approach, requiring many more soldiers, rather than the narrower focus on counter-terrorism – such as targeting suspected jihadist leaders – advocated by the US vice-president, Joe Biden.

"I'm confident it will be a counter-insurgency approach, with substantially more forces," Rasmussen said, and promised there would soon be "new momentum" behind Nato's beleaguered Afghan mission. Read more.

California Democratic Party to Obama: End the Occupation & Air War in Afghanistan | Press Release

At the California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting in San Diego last weekend, Party leaders passed a resolution co-authored by Marcy Winograd, 36th Congressional District candidate, calling on President Obama to set a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan while ceasing air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties. The President is currently weighing whether to send another 35,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Former Marine and Afghanistan veteran Rick Reyes came to support the resolution, saying, "I've been to the war zone and I know from experience there is no military solution to this conflict." The resolution, which urges an increase in humanitarian aid, passed without dissension on the floor. It also received the support of the Party's Chair, John Burton.

Said Winograd, “On the heels of this resolution passing, we need every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan. Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young men and women into the room, and transform a foreign policy that only breeds more enemies. I am encouraged that this resolution passed without dissent. Our voices must not be ignored, for ours are the voices of reason and hope that elected Barack Obama to the White House."

Read the resolution below, also co-authored by Progressive Caucus Chair Karen Bernal and author Norman Solomon.

North Alabama Peace Network says ... It's Obama's War Now!
By Linda Haynes

(Huntsville, Alabama -- Sat. Nov. 14, 2009) Today's North Alabama Peace Network rally focused on the fact that while President Obama inherited a bad situation, he has not pulled troops out of Iraq and has expanded the war in Afghanistan. He's even considering sending additional troops to Afghanistan in the coming weeks. And, Pakistan has become another war front.

These are President Obama's wars now. He owns them, over one year after winning the presidency. Alabama peace activists demand that President Obama bring our brave soldiers home now!

Tomgram: Pratap Chatterjee, Afghanistan as a Patronage Machine | TomDispatch.com

~Chip's Note: Every once in a while, Tom over at Tom's Dispatch writes an intro to an article that is so well-researched and comprehensive that it's difficult to excerpt just a portion as a prelude to the published article. This is one of those times. Both Tom's introduction and Pratap Chatterjee's "Paying Off the Warlords, Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption" will provoke your outrage at the stark reality of the what is really happening in Afghanistan. Now, on to Tom's introduction.

There is much discussion in the media today about "corruption" in Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan, but remarkably little actual reporting about it. Just back from Kabul, TomDispatch regular Pratap Chatterjee, author of Halliburton's Army, helps to rectify that deficit. He offers a rare, news-making, eye-opening inside look at how that country's system of nepotism and corruption -- involving its old "warlords" from the days of the post-Soviet civil war and its new corporate "reconstruction" raiders -- actually works. His piece is an anatomy of the way the brother of the country's new vice president (and long-time warlord), Mohammed Fahim, is raking in tens of millions of dollars in diesel fuel contracts for an American-built power plant -- even though far cheaper methods of bringing electricity to the Afghan capital now exist.

"Every morning," Chatterjee begins, "dozens of trucks laden with diesel from Turkmenistan lumber out of the northern Afghan border town of Hairaton on a two-day trek across the Hindu Kush down to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul. Among the dozens of businesses dispatching these trucks are two extremely well connected companies -- Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid -- that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim."

He then follows the history of corruption and the path of the money -- both Afghan and American -- as he traces the business dealings of the Afghan elite, including figures connected to Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and well-connected western "reconstruction" companies.

He concludes: "This week, Mohammed Qasim Fahim will be sworn in as the next vice-president of the new government of Afghanistan. Under an agreement with USAID, this new government is required to spend Afghan money to buy yet more diesel for the [U.S.-built] Tarakhil power plant, which in turn will put money exclusively and directly into the vice president's brother's pocket."

From TomDispatch today, a rare, carefully reported, follow-the-money piece from Afghanistan that reveals the corruption and nepotism at the highest levels of the Afghan government -- Pratap Chatterjee, "Paying Off the Warlords, Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption." This is a devastating look at how Afghaniscam actually works. Read more.

He says get out.

As they cave on healthcare and refuse to cut off the funding, providing no reason to pay any attention to them, the CPC is asking Obama to meet with them. Talk talk talk. Here's the letter PDF.

By Alice Ritchie, AFP

LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered to host an international conference on Afghanistan in London, which he said could set a timeframe for a handover of security to Afghan forces from 2010.

In a speech here late on Monday, Brown stressed that such a handover was a requirement for the withdrawal of Britain's 9,000 troops deployed in the country.

"I have offered London as a venue in the new year," Brown said in his annual speech to the Lord Mayor's Banquet. A pre-released version of the speech quoted him as offering to host a conference in January.

"I want that conference to chart a comprehensive political framework within which the military strategy can be accomplished.

"It should identify a process for transferring district by district to full Afghan control and if at all possible set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010."

Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan
By Norman Solomon

There's a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop making war in Afghanistan.

Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday (Nov. 15) by the California Democratic Party’s 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.”

The resolution supports “a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel” and calls for “an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties.” Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama “to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.”

Obama, the Karzai brothers & the ghost of Najibullah
By Carl Bloice | People's World | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

It's said that you can buy photos of Najibullah on the streets of Kabul these days and even cassettes of speeches he made in the 1980s when he was president of Afghanistan. Najibullah's name evokes controversy. Always cited are the condemnation by some Afghans for his ties to the Soviet Union and his previous role as chief of the country's internal security apparatus. However, it is impossible not to acknowledge the country's social gains made during his time in leadership. As soon as his government was overthrown the victors wiped out land reform programs, instituted Sharia or Islamic religious law, cut women off from education, athletics and the professions and banned things like movies, television, videos, dancing, kite flying, and beard trimming.

Quiet as it's kept, for many in the Afghan capital, the Najibullah years were a time of great promise.

But also of great danger. Outside forces were plotting and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was spurring reactionary groups - trained and equipped by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others - to overthrow the Afghan government. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, in the words of former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, "thought it a good idea to mousetrap the Soviets into their own Vietnam debacle by baiting them into invading Afghanistan in 1979, the war which was the precursor to the great-power Afghan quagmire three decades later." In 1979, Soviet troops entered the country to defend the Afghan government and remained there nine years. The effort was pre-doomed; the USSR leadership had ignored warnings, coming from even its own military strategists, that history had shown the fiercely independent and resourceful Afghans would never be subdued by the military might of foreign forces. Read more.

Note: Chris Cook recorded some interesting audio of Malalai on her current book tour as well as some of the Question & Answer period.

Opinion: U.S. is doing no good in Afghanistan
By Malalai Joya | Mercury News

As an Afghan woman who was elected to Parliament, I am in the United States to ask President Barack Obama to immediately end the occupation of my country.

Eight years ago, women's rights were used as one of the excuses to start this war. But today, Afghanistan is still facing a women's rights catastrophe. Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media.

In 2001, the U.S. helped return to power the worst misogynist criminals, such as the Northern Alliance warlords and druglords. These men ought to be considered a photocopy of the Taliban. The only difference is that the Northern Alliance warlords wear suits and ties and cover their faces with the mask of democracy while they occupy government positions. But they are responsible for much of the disaster today in Afghanistan, thanks to the U.S. support they enjoy.

The U.S. and its allies are getting ready to offer power to the medieval Taliban by creating an imaginary category called the "moderate Taliban" and inviting them to join the government. A man who was near the top of the list of most-wanted terrorists eight years ago, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has been invited to join the government.

Over the past eight years the U.S. has helped turn my country into the drug capital of the world through its support of drug lords. Today, 93 percent of all opium in the world is produced in Afghanistan. Many members of Parliament and high ranking officials openly benefit from the drug trade. President Karzai's own brother is a well known drug trafficker. Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

President Obama, in his visit to China, held a “town meeting” with Chinese students in which he praised openness and lectured them on the value of freedom of information, saying that he is a “supporter of non-censorship” and that open access to information was a “source of strength.”

And yet America is hardly free of censorship. Heck, the president himself has gone to court to prevent the release of photographs of US troops torturing captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo. Talk about censorship! But it goes way beyond just such crude, totalitarian style control over information.

Glad we've got our priorities straight. We can use violence to support a corrupt puppet government, but nonviolence is out. We have our standards.

The California Democratic Party passed this resolution:

End the U.S. Occupation & Air War in Afghanistan

WHEREAS the California Democratic Party, concerned citizens and lawmakers are calling for a U.S. exit strategy from Afghanistan that will end the occupation and air war while ensuring the safety and security of our troops, our nation, and the region; while even the U.S. Ambassador General Karl Eikenberry expresses concern about corruption in the Afghan government and our inability to stabilize the situation; and

WHEREAS the plight of women in Afghanistan is such that they continue to bear an esxpecially heavy price under an eight-year occupation, and that far from eradicating the Taliban and other insurgencies, the presence of foriegn troops has instead strengthened them, creating greater insecurity, death and impoverishment of the Afghan, people; and