---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marx Laboratory <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:19 AM
Subject: Afghanistan: The Longest Lost War - by James Petras
To: Marx Laboratory <[email protected]>
*Afghanistan**: The Longest Lost War*
* *
*By James Petras*
* *
*Introduction:*
Despite almost a decade of warfare, including an invasion and
occupation, the US military and its allies and client state armed forces are
losing the war in Afghanistan. Outside of the central districts of a few
cities and the military fortresses, the Afghan national resistance forces,
in all of their complex local, regional and national alliances, are in
control, of territory, people and administration.
The prolonged unending war has become a major drain on the
morale of the US armed forces and undermined civilian support in the US,
limiting the capacity of the White House to launch new imperial wars. The
annual multi-billion dollar military expenditures, are exacerbating the
out-of-control budget deficit and forcing harsh unpopular cuts on social
programs, at all levels of government. There is no end in sight, as the
Obama regime keeps increasing the number of troops by the tens of thousands
and military expenditures by the dozens of billions but the resistance
advances, both military and politically.
Faced with rising popular discontent and demands for fiscal
restraint by a wide spectrum of banking and citizen groups, Obama and the
general command have sought “partial exit” via the recruitment and training
of a large scale long term Afghan mercenary army and police force under the
direction of US and NATO officers.
*The US Strategy: The Making of an Afghan Neocolony:*
Between 2001-2010 the US military expenditures total $428
billion dollars; the colonial occupation has led to over 7,228 dead and
wounded as of June 1, 2010. As the US military situation deteriorates, the
White House escalates the number of troops resulting in a greater number of
killed and wounded. During the past 18 months of the Obama regime more
soldiers were killed or wounded than in the previous eight years.
The White House and Pentagon strategy is premised on massive
flows of money, arms and an increase in the number of surrogates, mainly
subsidized warlords and puppet western educated ex-pats. The White House
“development aid” involves, literally, purchasing the transient loyalties of
clan leaders. The White House attempts to give a veneer of legitimacy by
running elections, which enhance the corrupt image of the incumbent puppet
regime in Kabul and its regional associates.
On the military front, the Pentagon launches one “offensive”
after another, announcing one success after another, followed by a retreat
and return of the Resistance fighters. The US campaigns disrupt trade,
agricultural harvests and markets, while the air assaults targeting
“Taliban” and militants, more frequently than not end up killing more
civilians celebrating weddings, religious holidays and shoppers at markets
than combatants. The reason for the high percentage of civilian killings is
clear to everyone except the US Generals: there are no distinctions between
“militants” and millions of Afghan civilians since the former are an
integral part of their communities.
The key and ultimately decisive problem facing the US occupation
is that it is a colonial *enclave* in the midst of a colonized people. The
US, its local puppets and its NATO allies are a foreign colonial army and
its Afghan military and police recruits are seen as mere instruments
perpetuating illegitimate rule. Every action, whether violent or benign, is
perceived and interpreted as transgressing the norms and historical legacies
of a proud and independent people. In everyday life, every move by the
occupation is disruptive; nothing moves except by command of the foreign
directed military and police. Under threat of force, people fake
co-operation and then provide assistance to their fathers, brothers and sons
in the Resistance. The recruits take the money and turn their arms over to
the Resistance. The paid village informants are double agents or identified
by their neighbors and targeted by insurgents.
The Afghan collaborators, Washington’s closest allies, are seen
as corrupt traitors; transient rulers who have their bags packed and US
passports in hand, ready to flee when the US is forced to exit. All the
programs, “reconstruction” funds, training missions and “civic programs”
have failed to win the allegiance of the Afghan people, now as in the past
as well as in the future, because they are seen as part of the US military
occupation ultimately based on violence.
*Ten Reasons Why the Afghan Resistance Will Win:*
1.) The Resistance has deep roots in the population – family
community, linguistic and cultural ties which the US does not possess nor
can “invent”; nor can these ties be bought, traded or replicated by their
Afghan ‘collaborators’ or imposed by propaganda.
2.) The Resistance has fluid borders and broad international
support especially with Pakistan but also with other anti-imperialist,
Islamic groups who provide arms and volunteers and who engage in actively
attacking the logistical transport supply lines of US-NATO military in
Pakistan. They also pressure overseas US client regimes like Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia opening multiple fronts.
3.) Widespread infiltration, voluntary, active and passive
support of the Resistance among the US recruited and trained Afghan military
and police results in crucial intelligence on troop movements. Desertions
and absenteeism undermines “military competence”.
4.) The scope and breadth of Resistance activity over extends
the *imperial armies* at its current strength and causes it to rely on
unreliable Afghan security, who have no stomach for killing their brethren,
especially when directed against communities with relatives or ethnic kin.
5.) Resistance allies are more loyal, less corrupt and
reliable because of deeply shared beliefs. US allies are loyal only because
of ephemeral monetary gratification and the temporary presence of US
military force.
6.) The Resistance appeals to the people in the name of
a *return
to law and order* in everyday life, which preceded the disruptive invasion.
The US promise of positive outcomes following a successful war, have no
popular resonance after a decade long destructive occupation.
7.) The US has no belief system that can compete with the
religious-nationalist-traditionalist appeal of the Resistance to the vast
majority of village, small town and displaced rural population.
8.) The Resistance’s support of Iraqi, Palestinian and other
anti-imperialist forces has a positive appeal among the Afghan people who
have seen the destructive results of US wars in Iraq and proxy wars in
Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The US backed Israeli assault of Lebanon and
the humanitarian ship destined for Palestine and the highly visible presence
of Zionist militants in the US government, repels the more politically aware
opinion leaders in Afghanistan.
9.) Afghans have, by force of circumstances, longer staying
power in resisting the US military occupation, than the US people who have
other, far more pressing needs and the US military with growing commitments
in the Gulf.
10.) The Afghan Resistance does not normally kill civilians in
combat missions since the US troops and NATO are clearly identified. Whereas,
the opposite is not true. The Afghans who are part of the villages in
occupied communities are subject to assassinations by “Special Forces” and
drone bombings. In these circumstances ordinary people suffer the same
military assaults as Resistance fighters.
*A Failed Mission: The Incapacity to Build a Reliable, Effective Afghan
Mercenary Army*
* *
A US government audit published in late June of this year demolished
the Obama regime’s claims that it is succeeding in building an effective
Afghan mercenary army and police capable of buttressing the current client
regime in Kabul. The *Report*, based on a detailed analysis and field
observations argues that the Obama Pentagon relies on “standards [which are]
woefully inadequate, inflating the abilities of Afghan units that Mr. Obama
called “core to our mission” (*Financial Times*, June 7, 2010, p1). In
other words, Obama continues to play the *con game*, which he inaugurated
during his electoral campaign with his phony promises of ‘change’ and
“ending the wars”, and continued with his bail out of Wall Street in the
name of ‘saving the economy’. He followed up by escalating the war in
Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more troops and increasing military and police
expenditures to $325.5 billion, approximately 132% higher than the last year
of the Bush Administration (Congressional Research Service, FY 2010
*Supplemental
for Wars* … June 2010).
The Obama regime’s phony claims of progress were based on self-serving
*bureaucratic* and technical criteria, rather than the actual fighting *
performance* and behavior of the Afghan mercenary army. The military
command’s reports and progress reports were based on how many courses were
taught, the length and breadth of training and the amount and quality of
arms and equipment supplied to the Afghan troops. As the number of Afghan
units passing the “training missions” increased from zero to 22, between
2008 - 2009, the Pentagon claimed extraordinary progress. To correct the
errors, the Pentagon has turned to “field assessments by commanders” – which
is also failing, since the officials have a vested interest in inflating the
performance of the Afghans mercenaries under their command in order to
secure promotions and merit badges. The Obama regime plans to increase the
Afghan military from 97,000 in November 2009 to 134,000 in October 2010, to
171,000 in October 2011 a 75% increase in two years (*Congressional Research
Service* 2010, p 13). The same increase occurs with the police: from
93,800 in November 2009 to 134,000 in October 2011 a 43% increase.
Obama’s claim that the war is gradually being handed over to the US
“trained” Afghan army is fully belied by two other basic facts. The White
House has requested $1.9 billion – double the 2009 level under Bush – for
military construction of *new bases and installations* for a “long term
presence” (which the con-man Obama claims does not mean a “permanent
presence”). Secondly, using the familiar double-talk of the Obama regime,
Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff now argue that Obama’s campaign promise of beginning the retirement of
troops in July 2010 really means “a day we start transitioning … not a date
we’re leaving”, which would be based on “conditions on the ground … a
several year process” (Gates Testimony before Senate Armed Services
Committee, December 2, 2009). In plain English “transitioning” is not
“leaving”. It means staying, fighting and occupying Afghanistan for
decades. It means adding more troops, building more bases. It means
spending another $400 billion over the next 5 years. And it means doubling
the number of American soldiers killed and wounded over the next 3 years,
from over seven thousand to fourteen thousand.
The criteria of ‘success’ in Afghanizing the war is belied by the
growing *Americanizing* of the bases, combat troops and expenditures. The
reason is that the Afghan army figures are as phony as Obama’s promises. The
number of US personnel is growing because the Afghan political puppets are
so corrupt, ineffective and despised by their people that Washington has to
surround them with “monitors”, “advisers” and “operatives” who in turn are
totally incapable of relating to the needs and practices of the communities.
Increased US “aid” has led to greater corruption, more unfulfilled promises
and greater animosity from the would be popular recipients.
The fundamental problem is that this is an American war and that is
why Afghan units suffer a 50% reduction of strength due to at a minimum, a
20% desertion rate, admitted by US military officials (*Congressional
Research*, op cit, p.14). In other words, the Afghan recruits, take the
money and their arms and return to their villages, neighborhoods, families,
and perhaps not a few, use their military training, joining with the
National Resistance. With such high levels of disaffection among Afghan
recruits and even officials it is not surprising that the Resistance has
such high quality intelligence on US troop movements. Given the degree of
disaffection it is not surprising that some of the US intelligence
collaborators are double agents or vulnerable to exposure and execution. Faced
with a billion dollar recruitment program with high rates of desertion and
the “turning of guns on their mentors,” the White House, Pentagon and
Congress refuse to recognize the reality that the imperial occupations is
the source of the resistance of almost the whole people. Instead they call
for more trainees, more funds for “training programs”, more “transparent”
mercenary contractors.
The reality is that with a bigger American occupation, with escalating
military expenditures, the Resistance is growing, surrounding the major
cities, targeting meetings in the center of Kabul and rocketing the biggest
US military bases around the country. It is clear that the US has lost the
war politically and is in the process of losing it militarily.
Despite the most advanced military technology, the drones, the Special
Forces, the increase in the number of trainees, advisers, NGOers and the
building of more military bases, the Resistance is winning. The White House
by adding to the millions of displaced and murdered and maimed Afghans is
increasing the hostility of the vast majority of the Afghans. Civilian
killings are turning more and more of their military recruits into deserters
and “unreliable” soldiers. Some of whom are ‘turned’ into committed
combatants for the ‘other side’. As in Indo-China, Algeria and elsewhere, a
popular, highly motivated guerrilla resistance army, deeply embedded in the
national-religious culture of an oppressed population is proving more
resistant, enduring and victorious over an alien high tech imperial
army. Obama’s
‘rule or ruin’ Afghan War, sooner rather than later, will ruin America and
end his shameful presidency.* *
--
You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a
nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the
foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole.
-AMBEDKAR
http://venukm.blogspot.com
http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur
http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Green Youth Movement" group.
To post to this group, send an email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
