Moving On ... to Afghanistan
The Silent Winter of Escalation
By NORMAN SOLOMON
Sunday morning, before dawn, I read in the New York Times that the Pentagon is
planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan within the next 18
months -- raising American force levels to about 58,000 in that country. Then
I scraped ice off a windshield and drove to the C-SPAN studios, where a picture
window showed a serene daybreak over the Capitol dome.
While I was on C-SPANs Washington Journal for a live interview, the program
aired some rarely seen footage with the voices of two courageous politicians
who challenged the warfare state.
So, on Sunday morning, viewers across the country saw Barbara Lee speaking on
the House floor three days after 9/11 -- just before she became the only member
of Congress to vote against the presidents green-light resolution to begin the
U.S. military attack on Afghanistan.
However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of
restraint, she said. The date was Sept. 14, 2001. Congresswoman Lee continued:
Our country is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, Lets step back
for a moment, lets just pause just for a minute, and think through the
implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control.
And she said: As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.
The footage of Barbara Lee was an excerpt from the War Made Easy documentary
film (based on my book of the same name). As she appeared on a TV monitor, I
glanced out the picture window. The glowing blue sky and streaky clouds above
the Hill looked postcard-serene.
But the silence now enveloping the political non-response to plans for the
Afghanistan war is a message of acquiescence that echoes what happened when the
escalation of the Vietnam War gathered momentum.
During the mid-1960s, the conventional wisdom was what everyone with a modicum
of smarts kept saying: higher U.S. troop levels in Vietnam were absolutely
necessary. Today, the conventional wisdom is that higher U.S. troop levels in
Afghanistan are absolutely necessary.
Many people who think otherwise -- including, Id guess, quite a few members of
Congress -- are keeping their thoughts to themselves, heads down and mouths
shut, for roughly the same reasons that so many remained quiet as the
deployment numbers rolled upward like an odometer of political mileage on the
road to death in Vietnam.
Right now, the basic ingredients of further Afghan disasters are in place --
including, pivotally, a dire lack of wide-ranging debate over Washingtons
options. In an atmosphere reminiscent of 1965, when almost all of the esteemed
public voices concurred with the decision by newly elected President Lyndon
Johnson to deploy more troops to Vietnam, the tenet that the United States must
send additional troops to Afghanistan is axiomatic in U.S. news media, on
Capitol Hill and -- as far as can be discerned -- at the top of the incoming
administration.
But the problem with such a foreign-policy no brainer is that the parameters
of thinking have already been put in the rough equivalent of a lockbox. Dean
Rusk, Robert McNamara and Lyndon Johnson approached Vietnam policy options no
more rigidly than Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and Barack Obama appear poised
to pursue Afghanistan policy options.
I was thinking about this when I left the C-SPAN building in the full light of
day. The morning glow made the Capitol look majestic. Yet it was almost
possible to see, streaked across the dome, an invisible new stain of blood and
shattered bones.
Along with the grim patterns, theres a tradition of brave dissent on Capitol
Hill. Its epitomized by Barbara Lees prophetic statement just after 9/11 --
and by an earlier kindred spirit, the fierce Vietnam War opponent Senator Wayne
Morse. If youd like to see historic footage of them, retrieved from the
nations Orwellian memory hole, watch the Washington Journal segment by
clicking here.
This morning, USA Today reports that the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has
asked the Pentagon for more than 20,000 soldiers, Marines and airmen to raise
the U.S. troop level in Afghanistan to 55,000 or 60,000. General David
McKiernan says that is needed until we get to this tipping point where the
Afghan army and the Afghan police have both the capacity and capability to
provide security for their people. Such a tipping point is at least three or
four more years away, the general explained. So, if we put these additional
forces in here, it's going to be for the next few years. Its not a temporary
increase of combat strength.
Is Afghanistan the same as Vietnam? Of course, competent geographers would say
no. But the United States is the United States -- with domestic continuity
between two eras of military intervention, spanning five decades, much more
significant than we might think.
Bedrock faith in the Pentagons massive capacity for inflicting violence is
implicit in the nostrums from anointed foreign-policy experts. The echo chamber
is echoing: the Afghanistan war is worth the cost that others will pay.
Norman Solomon is the author of Made Love, Got War.
http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon12082008.html
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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