Line in the Sand – Afghanistan

There are many issues in the hands of our politicians facing American citizens today.  The economic crisis, our deficit, unemployment, health care, civil rights, environmental issues, aging infrastructure, gun issues, drug issues, our prison system, retirement, to name some.  

Then there is war, and torture, and U.S. imperialism.  I know we have an economic crisis and all.  But it seems to me that death of innocent civilians, inflicted during the course of war, including through torture, takes precedence in the overall scheme of things.  Not having a job is one thing, but getting killed by a drone plane is another.   Not having health care is one thing, but getting hit by white phosphorus while sleeping is another.  That is if you believe the life of an Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghani, Iranian, or Sudanese woman or child is just as precious as the baseball player who died from a drunk driver last week.  

The thing about U.S. imperialism is that ending it could solve many of our problems.  U.S. military expenditures are double what the rest of the countries in the world, 200 or so, spend combined.  Most people don’t like to talk about imperialism or hegemony for reasons I won’t venture.  But when reviewing the official definitions, I can see no other terms that better fit the behavior our military spending and geopolitical activities exhibit.  

I understand the U.S. faces geopolitical “concerns” and must be heavily involved in world affairs, to an extent.  However the reasons our controlling elite want this strategy is to ensure the U.S. remains the worlds sole superpower and to have the greatest access to natural resources, most particularly, oil, and other business interests.  I fail to see where this is benefiting the vast majority of U.S. citizens.  It certainly doesn’t seem to be making things better.  China is in a better position now than the U.S. and they have taken am economic approach to world status.  Russia could be in a better position than the U.S. if oil prices rise.  

That is the primary reason I disliked the Bush adminstration – the “Global War on Terror”, or GWOT.  I never bought into it like most Americans.  It was clear to me that it was simply a cover for pursuing more global interests, creating more instability for our potential adversaries, and implementing further control on the American public.   From this GWOT we also got the Patriot Act and declining civil liberties, torture at a scale we are now finding completely disgusting, FISA and illegal spying on U.S. citizens, Homeland Security and DOD plans to control the U.S. population should unrest occur, and damage to our economy taking much needed help from U.S. citizens.

We’ve learned of the actions the CIA and and other black operations have conducted that seek to create terrorism for fomenting instablity to bring about regime change or economic collapse of adversarial countries, i.e, Russia.  That’s a big part of this Afghanistan escapade, if the U.S. can’t control the resources, make sure China or Russia can’t, and feed the Military Industrial Complex (MIC).    

Line in the Sand.  The origin is disputed but the overall theme is if you cross that line, you’ve gone beyond that which can be accepted.  At least by whoever drew the line.  I drew that line long ago concerning the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The rationale Bush used for Iraq has been proven false, and the only reason to believe the rationale for Afghanistan is if you believe in the GWOT.  Which I don’t.  I’m not saying there isn’t terrorism, I am saying we should not approach it as a war with a military solution.  

So now comes the Obama administration, perpetuating the Iraq fiasco, and escalating the Afghanistan tragedy.   Those that say we will be out of Iraq in accordance with the SOFA are deceiving themselves.  Those that think we can “win” something in Afghanistan, after already being their eight years, are deluding themselves.  It’s like watching a horror slasher flick.  I’ve seen that movie before.

I have my line in the sand.  It’s my right and if you don’t like it, make your own line.  Mine was crossed by Bush.  Now it is being crossed by Obama.  There’s really nothing I can do, it was my line, I have to honor it.  I understand the blame goes far beyond Obama, but direction of criticism goes to the top, same as with Bush.  That’s the way it is.  

So far, the U.S. has spent well over a trillion dollars, cost the lives of nearly 5000 U.S. military men and women, over 100,000 injured – many for life, 1133 Coalition military members killed, well over one thousand contractors, and 139 journalists.  Studies of overall civilian lives lost in Iraq indicate over 1.3 million.  Millions more displaced and living in terrible conditions.  Afghanistan civilian losses are in the tens of thousands but harder to verify.  Over 4000 civilians lost their lives in Afghanistan directly from the bombing raids the U.S. conducted between Oct 7, 2001 and March 2002.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.o…

http://www.nationalpriorities….

The infrastructures of two countries have been destroyed.  Basic necessities such as food, water, and electricity are hard to come by for most citizens, millions of them.  Women and children are forced to live their lives in terror.  Billions of dollars have been wasted on contractor fraud, outright theft, and shoddy contractor construction.  Now the U.S., not to mention the entire world, is at Def Con 5 on the Economic Crisis meter.  Another crime of the century, another story.  But our military imperialism didn’t help the matter.

So why has all this happened and has it been worth it?  The official reason for these costs, human and financial, are because we were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qeada and that Iraq had WMDs.  Afghanistan was attacked first, less than a month after 9/11.  The stated reason for invading Afghanistan was to capture Osama bin Laden, destroy al Qaeda, and remove the Taliban regime who supported and provided safe harbor to bin Laden.  The “Bush Doctrine” was developed, where as policy, the U.S. would not distinguish between al Qaeda and nations that harbor them.  

So boil it down a little.  Again, we know that the Bush rationale for the Iraq war was built on lies.  The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) clearly laid out plans for Iraq, and its agenda and signatories were hired by Bush.  They received their “excuse” from 9/11 and went after their prizes.  It was all bullshit as we now know and Obama can do nothing other than admit that and tell us we will get out.  

The Afghanistan war rationale is more nebulous.  Which is why Obama still has support from the left for his surge and continued use of the Bush doctrine and rationale for a war on terror.  Even though SOS Hillary said we won’t use that term any longer, give me a break please.  Hey, did you hear, we won the war on terror, but now we are in the “Long War”.  That’s just ridiculous. We know that the invasion of Afghanistan was prepared well before 9/11 hit.  We know that oil was a big part of the stategy.  And we know that the whole thing was planned and carried out by the same people who lied about the Iraq war and just about everything else they did in their eight shameless years.  If you don’t believe Bush about Iraq, why believe him about Afghanistan?  And extending that, why believe Obama?  

Neither war would have occurred without 9/11.  Approximately 3.000 people were killed that day.   A terrible tragedy for sure.  The response is the greater tragedy.  Over 5000 U.S. military killed and over 100,000 injured, over 1000 Coalition deaths, over 1 million Iraqis killed, tens of thousands of Afghanis killed and injured, and over a trillion dollars spent.  And no real end in sight.  That is the price paid to avenge the acts of 20 hijackers and a rogue band of Muslims.  

Timothy McVeigh killed 142 citizens in a domestic act of terrorism.  No one died in the apprehension of that terrorist.  All twenty of the direct actors in 9/11 died.  Only the planners and funders remained.  A law enforcement action could have been conducted to find, apprehend and prosecute those responsible.  A proclamation of war and massive military might resulting in over one million deaths, mostly innocent civilians, was never a logical approach to 9/11.  Unless there were ulterior motives, which we know there were.  

Still, regarding those ulterior motives, were these costs worth that agenda?  The one about oil and other resources, and geopolitical gamesmanship to keep the the U.S. on top?  Is it worth the over 300,000 children that have been killed?  Children like mine, like the President’s, like yours.  Is it worth destroying millions more lives?  People criticized Israel for its disproportionate response to the rockets fired by Hamas.  The disproportionate response from the U.S. is far, far greater.  

That’s my line in the sand.  Imperialism, War and killing.  I served in the Vietnam war and know the truth behind it.  If Obama wants to perpetuate this war on terror, resulting in the continued deaths of innocent women and children, I won’t support that or him.  Because human life is more important than anything, regardless of the color of skin, nature of religion, or who happens to be their ruler.

My personal protest.  The power of the vote.  That seems to be the only thing we have left to impact politics.  Protests don’t seem to work, petitions don’t seem to work, calling your representatives doesn’t seem to work.  Not on the big stuff, war, torture and imperialism.  I don’t have a draft card to burn, so I’m mailing my democratic party registration card to the White House and telling them to keep it until U.S. imperialism is ended, and a humane and sane approach to world politics and affairs is created. Fuck it, I’m getting too old for these games.                  

3 comments

    • Underdog on April 19, 2009 at 07:02
      Author

    Just an opinion piece.

    • Edger on April 19, 2009 at 12:21

    Ira Chernus, Democratic Doublespeak on Iraq, July 22, 2007

    Start with the simplest, most basic fudge.  Newspapers and the TV news constantly report on various plans for the “withdrawal of American troops” from Iraq, when what’s being proposed is the withdrawal of American “combat troops” or “combat brigades.” This isn’t a matter of splitting hairs; it’s the difference between a plan for full-scale withdrawal and a plan to remain in Iraq in a different military form for the long term. American combat brigades only add up to perhaps half of the troops we presently have in that country.

    Pity the poor Democratic candidates for president, caught between Iraq and a hard place. Every day, more and more voters decide that we must end the war and set a date to start withdrawing our troops from Iraq. Most who will vote in the Democratic primaries concluded long ago that we must leave Iraq, and they are unlikely to let anyone who disagrees with them have the party’s nomination in 2008.

    But what does it mean to “leave Iraq”? Here’s where most of the Democratic candidates come smack up against that hard place. There is a longstanding bipartisan consensus in the foreign-policy establishment that the US must control every strategically valuable region of the world — and none more so than the oil heartlands of the planet. That’s been a hard-and-fast rule of the elite for some six decades now. No matter how hard the task may be, they demand that presidents be rock-hard enough to get the job done.

    So whatever “leave Iraq” might mean, no candidate of either party likely to enter the White House on January 20, 2009 can think it means letting Iraqis determine their own national policies or fate.



    So the Democratic front-runners must promise voters that they will end the war — with not too many ideologically laden ifs, ands, or buts — while they assure the foreign-policy establishment that they will never abandon the drive for hegemony in the Middle East (or anywhere else). In other words, the candidates have to be able to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time.

    “The single most important job of any president is to protect the American people,” [Obama] affirmed in a major foreign-policy statement last April. But “the threats we face…. can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries…. The security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people.” That’s why the U.S. must be the “leader of the free world.” It’s hard to find much difference on foreign policy between Clinton and Obama, except that Barack is more likely to dress up the imperial march of U.S. interests in such old-fashioned Cold War flourishes.

    That delights neoconservative guru Robert Kagan, who summed up Obama’s message succinctly:  “His critique is not that we’ve meddled too much but that we haven’t meddled enough…. To Obama, everything and everyone everywhere is of strategic concern to the United States.”  To control everything and everyone, he wants “the strongest, best-equipped military in the world…. A 21st century military to stay on the offense.” That, he says, will take at least 92,000 more soldiers and Marines — precisely the number Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has recommended to President Bush.

    “Ancient History”: U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention

    Sheldon L. Richman, 1991

    If the chief natural resource of the Middle East were bananas, the region would not have attracted the attention of U.S. policymakers as it has for decades. Americans became interested in the oil riches of the region in the 1920s, and two U.S. companies, Standard Oil of California and Texaco, won the first concession to explore for oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. They discovered oil there in 1938, just after Standard Oil of California found it in Bahrain. The same year Gulf Oil (along with its British partner Anglo-Persian Oil) found oil in Kuwait. During and after World War II, the region became a primary object of U.S. foreign policy. It was then that policymakers realized that the Middle East was “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”[4]

    Subsequently, as a result of cooperation between the U.S. government and several American oil companies, the United States replaced Great Britain as the chief Western power in the region.[5] In Iran and Saudi Arabia, American gains were British (and French) losses.[6] Originally, the dominant American oil interests had had limited access to Iraqi oil only (through the Iraq Petroleum Company, under the 1928 Red Line Agreement). In 1946, however, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Mobil Oil Corp., seeing the irresistible opportunities in Saudi Arabia, had the agreement voided.[7] When the awakening countries of the Middle East asserted control over their oil resources, the United States found ways to protect its access to the oil. Nearly everything the United States has done in the Middle East can be understood as contributing to the protection of its long-term access to Middle Eastern oil and, through that control, Washington’s claim to world leadership. The U.S. build-up of Israel and Iran as powerful gendarmeries beholden to the United States, and U.S. aid given to “moderate,” pro-Western Arab regimes, such as those in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan, were intended to keep the region in friendly hands. That was always the meaning of the term “regional stability.”[8]

    This is what I believe – they (Washington pols, Obama included, and the oligarchs behind them) operate and live in more terror than the terror they have fanned in the American people to justify their WOT (war of terror).

    They are terrified that if they cannot control the energy resources of the Middle East (and other countries access too it as well) that the American Empire will collapse. So in that sense they do what they do to “protect” their vision of “America”.

    But… as we have seen, especially over the past year, what is happening I think is a collapse that is a result of imperialism and hegemony, not a collapse in spite of it.

    In other words, they are causing the collapse. Obama included. But it is only the tail end, the “last throes” if you will, of a century or more long  Unfolding Collapse. “Rome”.

    Great essay, Underdog.

    • ANKOSS on April 20, 2009 at 18:11

    Check out the war-loving new front-page stories in the New York times from an embedded reporter. It seems that a few days ago, our boys ambushed and killed a bunch of Taliban and the Times touted their success. Now we see in today’s NYT that the same platoon got ambushed in retaliation and lost a man. This platoon has lost 4 KIA in the last nine months. Obviously, this game could go on for a long, long time. And for what?

    Just what are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan, other than giving Obama and Emanuel a pet war to protect their political flanks from Republican war mongers? Since when did PERMANENT WAR become a feature of American politics?

Comments have been disabled.