Afghanistan: Ten Years of Aimless War

Published on Saturday, October 8, 2011 by Eric Margolis

Operation Enduring Freedom – the dreadfully misnamed ten-year US occupation of Afghanistan – has turned into Operation Enduring Misery.

The renowned military strategist, Maj. Gen. J.F.C Fuller, defined war’s true objective as achieving desired political results, not killing enemies.

Obama is building the biggest embassy in the world in Kabul, an $800 million fortress with 1,000 personnel, protected by a small army of mercenary gunmen. So much for withdrawal plans.But this is just what the US has been doing in Afghanistan. After ten years of war costing at least $450 billion, 1,600 dead and 15,000 seriously wounded soldiers, the US has achieved none of its strategic or political goals.

Each US soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million per annum. CIA employs 80,000 mercenaries there, cost unknown. The US spends a staggering $20.2 billion alone annually air conditioning troop quarters in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The most damning assessment comes from the US-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai: America’s war has been “ineffective, apart from causing civilian casualties.”

Washington’s goal was a favorable political settlement producing a pacified Afghan state run by a regime totally responsive to US political, economic and strategic interests; a native sepoy army led by white officers; and US bases that threaten Iran, watch China, and control the energy-rich Caspian Basin.

All the claims made about fighting “terrorism and al-Qaida,” liberating Afghan women and bringing democracy are pro-war window dressing. CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 25-50 al-Qaida members in Afghanistan. Why are there 150,000 US and NATO troops there?

Washington’s real objective was clearly defined in 2007 by US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher: to “stabilize Afghanistan so it can become a conduit and hub between South and Central Asia – so energy can flow south.”

The Turkmenistan-Afghan-Pakistan TAPI gas pipeline that the US has sought since 1998 is finally nearing completion. But whether it can operate in the face of sabotage remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Washington has been unable to create a stable government in Kabul. The primary reason: ethnic politics. Over half the population is Pashtun (or Pathan), from whose ranks come Taliban. Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities fiercely oppose the Pashtun. All three collaborated with the Soviet occupation from 1979-1989; today they collaborate with the US and NATO occupation.

Most of the Afghan army and police, on which the US spends $6 billion annually, are Tajiks and Uzbek, many members of the old Afghan Communist Party. To Pashtun, they are bitter enemies. In Afghanistan, the US has built its political house on ethnic quicksands.

Worse, US-run Afghanistan now produces 93% of the world’s most dangerous narcotic, heroin. Under Taliban, drug production virtually ended, according to the UN. Today, the Afghan drug business is booming. The US tries to blame Taliban; but the real culprits are high government officials in Kabul and US-backed warlords.

A senior UN drug official recently asserted that Afghan heroin killed 10,000 people in NATO countries last year. And this does not include Russia, a primary destination for Afghan heroin.

So the United States is now the proud owner of the world’s leading narco-state and deeply involved with the Afghan Tajik drug mafia.

The US is bleeding billions in Afghanistan. Forty-four cents of every dollar spent by Washington is borrowed from China and Japan. While the US has wasted $1.283 trillion on the so-called “war on terror,” China has been busy buying up resources and making new friends and markets. The ghost of Osama bin Laden must be smiling.

The US can’t afford this endless war against the fierce Pashtun people, renowned for making Afghanistan “the Graveyard of Empires.” But the imperial establishment in Washington wants to hold on to strategic Afghanistan, particularly the ex-Soviet air bases at Bagram and Kandahar. The US is building its biggest embassy in the world in Kabul, an $800 million fortress with 1,000 personnel, protected by a small army of mercenary gunmen. So much for withdrawal plans.

The stumbling, confused US war in Afghanistan has now lasted longer than the two world wars. The former US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McCrystal, just said Washington’s view of that nation is “frighteningly simplistic.” That’s an understatement.

Facing the possibility of stalemate or even defeat in Afghanistan, Washington is trying to push India deeper into the conflict. This desperate ploy, and nurturing ethnic conflict, will ensure another decade of misery for Afghanistan.

© 2011 Eric Margolis

Gandhi’s Lesson for Today

Published on Saturday, October 1, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Kathy Kelly

In a soon-to-be published book entitled Gandhi and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiments with Truth, Jim Douglass contrasts the deadly machinations of Gandhi's probable killers with Gandhi’s own incredible bravery and that of his followers, whose mantra during campaigns for independence expressed their absolute commitment to resist injustice openly, lovingly and fearlessly: with their whole lives. Their mantra was “Do or die.” (Flickr: Hiteshi)

By 1946, the longed-for independence of India had become a reality, but Gandhi was deeply dismayed by the slaughter taking place as Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs massacred each other. He determined to visit the villages most affected by the violence, beginning in the Noakhali region where the population included 1,800,000 Muslims and 400,000 Hindus. In this region, “the minority Hindus were landowners and professionals,” Douglass writes. “They had ignored grievances from Muslim workers who, incensed by tales of Hindus killing Muslims elsewhere, carried out vicious attacks.”

Gandhi and a handful of his friends fanned out, going singly to the Noakhali villages where savage butchery had taken place, and agreed to live alone, in the midst of the violence, and do their best to clean up the debris, rebuild homes and be of general service to the community.

Douglass focuses on the image of Gandhi walking 116 miles to visit 47 villages, forced to balance as precariously in travel as he had in his politics and his life: “Walking against a background of sky and vegetation, Gandhi could be seen crossing the shankos of Noakhali, narrow bamboo bridges held high on poles.” This trip, made at age 77, he undertook many parts of entirely alone: he and his followers were needed in too many places.

Ordinary people responded positively to the pilgrims who came into their villages. The experiment moved on to Bihar, Calcutta and eventually to New Delhi, attempting to combat the terrorism of both Hindu and Muslim ethnic violence. Eventually, in Delhi, he undertook a final fast for Hindu-Muslim unity. “I shall terminate the fast only when peace has returned to Delhi,” said Gandhi. “If peace is restored to Delhi it will have effect not only on the whole of India but also on Pakistan. When that happens, a Muslim will be able to walk around in the city all by himself.”

Gandhi’s assassins were plotting violence in secret, both against Gandhi and his vision of Muslim safety in the heart of India, even as Gandhi repeatedly risked all, employing his “truth force,” the astonishing power of truth, of transparency and nonviolence, that had liberated India. What relevance do Gandhi’s tactics of choice have in these times of night raids, drone warfare, and, as the new centerpiece of our foreign policy, a tightening net of abductions and assassinations aiming to cover the globe?

Gandhi the truth-teller died at the hands of his killers, some of whom, Jim Douglass alleges, walked away scot-free under cover of self-preserving lies. Gandhi’s assassins believed they were working for the betterment of a country which Gandhi had already moved mountains to liberate, uplift, and enrich, and which they proceeded to help destroy. I think of the United States’ tactic of seemingly universal war, to be waged indefinitely throughout a world, where no Muslim will be able to walk in safety if, according to perpetrators of Islamophobia, our nation is finally to prosper.

Consider the contrast between Gandhi’s precarious, defenseless efforts to reach his fellow humans, traveling alone and armed only with truth, and, in contrast, weigh U.S. reliance on a massive arsenal of weapons and armed warriors, costing the world $2 billion dollars per week in lost productivity.

Aged Gandhi walked alone into a nightmare of fear on those bamboo bridges, and his payment for it was death, but his path was one through sunlight that redeemed his country; while his scheming jingoistic killers devised a doom for India which is still bloodily unfolding. Many patriots claim to love the U.S., but the darkness and the blood will corrupt this love, will make us doom our country: our safety will not survive the determination to find it in arms, in numbers, and in the cover of night.

Gandhi’s solitary sunlit path, his path against the sky, was by far the less precarious. As we may learn through occupations of town squares across the U.S., truth, and only truth, can keep the balance.

Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Kathy Kelly's email is kathy@vcnv.org

PACOM's 'Allied Nations' Strategy Will Drive Guam's Base Tactics

PACOM's 'Allied Nations' Strategy Will Drive Guam's Base Tactics

Adm. Willard: Multilateralism Is The Name Of The Game

Written by Jeff Marchesseault, Guam News Factor Staff Writer
Friday, 30 October 2009 15:37

GUAM - As Guam prepares for the military buildup, we can expect new and refurbished forces based here in the Territory to integrate evermore seamlessly into a pan-Pacific alliance of nations that are mutually committed to protecting human and economic freedom.

According to a recent interview of Adm. Robert F. Willard, the new Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, multilateralism and multinational alliance is the name of the game in a world where multiple threats call for multiple partners.

"We are looking for as many partners ... as we can find in the region," Willard said in an interview with the American Forces Press Service.

Here is the original AFPS story from October 28, 2009:

U.S. Dept Of Defense - Willard Looks To Partnerships In Pacific

Navy Adm. Robert F. Willard made his Hollywood debut as the Soviet MiG pilot who challenged Tom Cruise's character - known by the call sign "Maverick" - to an exhilarating dogfight before meeting his demise in the 1986 "Top Gun" blockbuster.

While serving as operations and executive officer at the Navy's "Top Gun" Fighter Weapons School at the time, Willard was aerial coordinator for the movie. That got him a short, but pivotal, on-screen appearance as the pilot of an F-14 fighter jet painted black and embellished for the movie with a MiG-style fin flash on its tail.

"I kept looking back over my shoulder, and another missile was on its way," Willard recalled of the dogfight scene in which he ultimately was shot down. "It was very exciting."

More than two decades later, in his new role as the top U.S. officer in the Pacific, Willard doesn't have the luxury of being able to fixate on a single, Warsaw Pact-type threat. His vast region of responsibility, which stretches across half the world's surface and includes half its population in 36 countries, enjoys a relative peace. But its tensions, like its volatile geology, are bubbling just at or slightly below the surface.

North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs and China's military buildup and lack of transparency loom large. Terrorist activity threatens Indonesia, the Philippines and most recently, India. Other challenges range from piracy to the proliferation of technology for weapons of mass destruction.

Willard sat down with reporters last week in Seoul, South Korea, just two days after assuming command, to discuss these and other challenges and his vision for U.S. Pacific Command.

"I love this region of the world," he said. "The Asia-Pacific region, to me, is extremely complex [and] has a great history associated with it."

As he spoke, Willard had yet to set foot into his new headquarters office at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, perched on a mountain with a majestic view of Pearl Harbor. After consultative sessions in South Korea last week and an off-site defense chiefs conference in Hawaii this week, Willard said, he was looking forward to getting settled into his new office and getting down to business with his new staff.

North Korea is high on his priority list.

"A nuclear-armed North Korea, and a North Korea that chooses to provoke and ... may be on the brink of succession - all those things make North Korea worthy of our attention now," he said. "North Korea needs to be watched very closely."

Meanwhile, China is expanding its military might at "an unprecedented rate," Willard said, exceeding U.S. intelligence estimates every year for the past decade. Equally troubling, China also has obtained "asymmetric capabilities that are concerning to the region," including anti-access capabilities, ballistic missiles and sophisticated weaponry.

And even the historically rock-solid alliance with Japan is demanding more attention these days, as Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's new government reassesses security agreements made by previous administrations.

Willard told reporters he's intent on strengthening the five U.S. alliances in the region and bringing new partners, including China, into the fold.

China abruptly halted all military-to-military engagement when the United States announced arms sales to Taiwan in October 2008. But now that China has demonstrated a willingness to re-engage, Willard wants to increase the interface and take the relationship to a new level.

"China is not our enemy," he said. "We look forward to a constructive relationship with China and their constructive contribution to the security of the Asia-Pacific region."

Willard said he'll work to promote more multilateralism in a region that historically has been characterized by bilateral relationships with the United States. "Ten years ago, the Asia-Pacific was, by and large, a place where ... countries were very comfortable talking one-on-one with the United States or with other partners, but rarely together," he said.

Although that's been improving, Willard said, current challenges facing the region demand even closer cooperation. He pointed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the power of like-minded nations engaging together, as valuable lessons for the Pacific.

"We are looking for as many partners ... as we can find in the region," he said.

As he takes on these challenges, Willard brings to the job extensive experience in the Pacific, both operationally, as a Navy pilot, and in command positions.

Most recently, he spent two and a half years commanding U.S. Pacific Fleet, the world's largest fleet command, with its 180 ships, 1,500 aircraft and 125,000 sailors and Marines. He previously commanded the Fighter Squadron 51 "Screaming Eagles"; the amphibious flagship USS Tripoli; the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln out of Everett, Wash.; Carrier Group 5 aboard USS Kitty Hawk; and 7th Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan.

While he's already putting his experience to work, Willard conceded that the top Pacom job demands an entirely different focus.

"This is a more strategic level of command than the components are, and as a consequence, it will be a little different level of engagement," he said. "It's a new experience for me, and I very much look forward to it."

To help in preparing himself, Willard spent the past couple months consulting with think-tank and Asia experts and working with a small transition team to ensure a smooth transition to his new post.

He noted during his Oct. 19 assumption of command ceremony the vast changes that have taken place in Asia and the Pacific in recent decades. The one constant, he said, has been Asia's growing importance, not just to the region, but to the world.

Willard said he'll work tirelessly to ensure Pacom lives up to the challenges, and sends an unmistakable message of U.S. commitment to Asia and the Pacific.

"Our nation's interests are here," he said.