( – promoted by buhdydharma )
My husband was talking yesterday about Afghanistan, how it was about to really blow up. Besides his ardent love of listening to NPR on various stations during his working hours, he had caught a Frontline “War Briefing” about Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Musharraf made a deal with the war lords, paid them off and got voted out of power. Bhutto got assassinated. You all know the recent history.
The real point of the show was that the influx of Extremist Muslims to the area from all over the Islamic world determined to make it an Islamic State has made it volatile.
Here’s where our conversation got interesting.
We segued into all the Wars the US has failed in, for a lack of understanding of the People we were trying to influence.
“Like in Vietnam, where the villagers welcomed us during the day, and were all VC after dark” he started, “in Afghanistan, the Taliban also will retaliate against anyone who aids us, much as the VC did in Vietnam. It is impossible to know who is your enemy.”
I went into why we shouldn’t be intervening in sovereign nations in the first place, let them have their country the way they want to.
After talking about why they intervene (greed usually) he started on the meme that these people actually DO hate us, a position chronicled by Arthur Gilroy’s own trip to the middle east last year.
“They really do hate us Diane, that’s where NY came from, not Iraq, not anywhere else. The rest just want to grow their Poppies in peace. Or whatever. There is an Islamic Taliban that wants America dead.”
You mean the Poppies we poisoned, along with whole villages, or Charlie Wilson’s war, or the Saudis that were flying the planes? Which “enemy”? We create enemies, and if we leave them alone, and they can live as they choose, perhaps in a generation that resentment will die away.
We armed them, for fucks sakes, to fight with Russia, we gave them rocket launchers instead of throwing rocks. Then we stayed.
Then I dared to say aloud the things few people will.
Why is it so problematic for a country to want an Islamic State, yet its ok for there to be a Jewish State? Especially for Americans, who have tried so hard to make this a Christian State?
Secondly, perhaps they hate us because we have interfered so much in the Middle East for ages, and are stationed in their Holy Places. Would Catholics want Taliban stationed in Rome? Would Sarah Palin not protest a head shop and a strip club going up next to her church? Thats how they view us in their regions.
We prop up dictators (House of Saud, anyone?) who make their Faustian bargains with us (Saddam Hussein, anyone) and them take them down (The Shah, anyone?) when we no longer need/want them.
Perhaps if we pulled out and left them the fuck alone, we wouldn’t even be on their radar screens?
Apparently I am much too simplistic.
My husband started again on how that whole region has been run by “sects” “war lords” and “nomadic groups” forever, who will never get along.
Think about how very Exceptionalist those quoted terms are, how derogatory. In a region with little resources, perhaps living in smaller, communal groups is a good thing. We Americans look back now and romanticize Native Americans for living exactly like that.
Who are WE to say how THEY should live? Just as the Vietnamese mostly didn’t give a fuck about a centralized government there, just wanted to live in their villages unmolested, perhaps we just don’t get that these people too have a right to live as they choose.
Let them work out their own fights, much as the US did in our own Civil War(s).
Still too simplistic, me.
Its the oil. It will be years before we have any kind of non-reliance on it.
Seriously, I countered, if we could put a man on the moon with all our collective will, brightest minds, resources and the government supporting it in a few short years with brand new technology; could we not produce gazillions of windmills with technology we already have, tapping into a system of dispersal we already have in place, in 3 or 4 years?
Its not rocket science. Literally. Its a scaffold, some gears, fins and a generator. Think of all the people we could put to work making them and maintaining them. Electricity, done.
Sure transportation is the biggest issue, and we are probably 15 years out from trucking being electric.
Could we not make it mandatory in that amount of time for people to drive small electric cars, and have permits for the larger trucking industry, permits for people who need work trucks, and rental trucks for those who need to move a mattress?
It takes collective will, national support and could be done. Produced here, it would keep our assets in country and make us non-reliant on keeping patsies in the Middle East.
We need the money in oil to control the region, and we are 25-30 years away from that ever changing he thinks. The money that IS already in this country will fight the technology every step of the way.
We argued long about all those things, but that’s the framework. I still think it could be done.
I’m still too simplistic.
The United States will never abandon Israel.
Where did I mention Israel? Aren’t we talking about the “Istans”???? The “Istans” you say have inept armies, too inept to control their own people?
India, Pakistan, god knows who else all have nukes now. They hate Israel, and we will never abandon them. India and Pakistan despise each other as well. Without us, Israel would fall.
Perhaps if we quit backing Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians, their fellow Muslims, they might just leave them alone too. Perhaps if Israel treated their fellow countrymen with respect no one would hate them, either.
They hate them for the same reasons they hate us.
So there you have it:
We are fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan with winter coming on because really, Saudi Oil and Israeli genocidists say we must and we are too lazy and uncommitted to “grow our own”.
And you think I’m the simplistic one?
Heh.
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perhaps simplicity is the answer to complexity.
But how would I know, I’m a naive, idealistic, simplistic dolt!
Heh.
🙂
We made a silly pretense of trying to “fix” Iraq what have we done in Afghanistan? Do they have clean water, reliable electricity, or better health care? Nothing like invading a place and not actually doing anything. And how often is Afghanistan even mentioned when we talk about foreign policy. Kinda like we forgot we were even there.
I believe your thinking on this is sound. We begin with simple ideas: “Perhaps if we pulled out and left them the fuck alone…” that lead to actions which generate reactions and responses. Our starting premises are simple, acting consistently on poorly thought-out premises will create the messes that you detailed. Acting consistently on good premises, like the windmills, creates a lot of results that bring positive benefits. Understanding the root premise, which can be simply stated, will go a long way towards understanding results.
This is something that imbeciles like neocons and christopaths (h/t driftglass) simply don’t understand, in large part because they don’t allow Reality to influence their premises. I believe one of the great appeals people find in Obama is that he speaks like an adult to adult situations, not like a kid having a tantrum (eg- Caribou Barbie), or like a dogmatic paternalist (eg- Deadeye Dick Cheney). And most of all, he is dealing with Reality and speaking the truth about the actual experiences people are having as Americans these days. He speaks simple premises that will result in positive actions the like of which we have not seen since the space program of the 60’s.
Rincewind asked a peasant standing in a rice paddy(?) holding an ox on a leash, what he hoped the war would do…what change he wanted from it.
‘A longer leash would be nice’
Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times
(i hope this is the correct book, mine are packed so i can’t go thumb through them & find the exact passage-soory!)
It’s high time we learned to leave people the fuck alone. They’d have far fewer reasons to hate us and we might be able to focus on our own shortcomings for a change.
…is a very, very old place, in human terms. Also one where empires go to die, lying as it does across regions contested since before paper.
Afganistan has gone very bad and was certainly a bad idea from the beginning. But I will not claim — and have real problems with (not that it matters lol) — the idea that repressive local values must be respected. War is not a very good route to an open society, historically. But neither is open society “their” problem, to me at least. People are not animals in national pens, with their religious traditions stapled on the gate, but individuals. War does a crappy job of getting those individuals dignity and rights. But…so does a relativism which seems to me in the end a kind of self-serving disinterest.
Who indeed, is the US government to say how anyone should live? But as a person…well, I’m a queer. And we’re all over the damn world, born every day. And we are human beings.
2 cents :}
it’s historically seen one Empire after another march through and try to hold it. It seems to me to be ass backwards to say well they are repressive to human rights and therefore were helping them. We are the latest Super Power to proclaim that this place is a hot bed of terrorists and trouble. It seems the height of hypocrisy when in actuality our motives have nothing to do with the plight of the people there but everything to do with the catch all phrase of our neocon ambitions, geopolitical national interests.
Unical comes to mind, why is the democratically elected president a Unical guy? Killing Bin Laudin is such a joke as a solution for terrorism. He’s a black sheep Saudi prince we armed and pointed at the Evil Empire. Is he even there? I doubt it. He’s our Goldstien and we can place him where ever we want to, apparently in a cave equipped with dialyisis and video equipment.
If we wanted to help Afghanistan we would not be killing them, torturing them or even drop peanut butter on their heads, and call it aid. They are not a threat to us, that’s just a justification for continuing the empirical wars of conquest we call spreading democracy. Terrorism does not spring from one source it has always existed, always will. The Taliban may be disgusting but they don’t hold a candle to what we do to people when they get in the cross hairs of our ‘interests’.
Another great essay Diane W, you seem to be cranking out one gem after another.