Doubling Down In The Land Where Empires Crumble

(And I also posted over here.)

For those interested in the history of Afghanistan, today is the 90th anniversary of the day that the country gained its independence from Great Britain after the Third Anglo-Afghan War (here). As Wikipedia tells us here, the British “made numerous attempts to impose their will upon Kabul” because they were worried that, had they not done so, the Russian Tsarist forces would have used Afghanistan to attack India, which at that time was still a British colony (the pic above shows Afghan forces of the day).

I could go much further back into history to point out that wars have been fought in Afghanistan since its founding; based on excavations by the University of Pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution, there are those who believe the country is approximately 50,000 years old (this article also tells us that “Afghanistan's history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of Central, West, and South Asia”).

My point is that this country has been used for various purposes for various empires for a very, very long time (which I’m sure many of you already knew).

So what of today, then?

Well, this tells us that August is on track for “becom(ing) the deadliest month for American forces in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001” (never a good sign when the drumbeat of “deadliest month” stories picks up…and by the way, things are also bad at the moment in the land of Dubya’s war of choice based on this).

And if we’re sustaining more troop losses somewhere in the world, you can be sure a politician (usually, but not always, a Republican) will call for sending more troops into the meat grinder. And John McCain does exactly that here.

This more or less plays into what we’ve learned from General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, who announced here that the Taliban faction is now the strongest it has been since the 2001 US-led invasion which drove them out of power and installed the current government in its place.

“The insurgency has grown,” Gen. McChrystal admitted in an interview in Kabul today, “it has grown geographically, and it has grown in levels of violence.”

(By the way, Gen. McChrystal happens to be Number 47 on the list by Antemedius here of the 50 Bush Administration members who should be prosecuted for war crimes; as James Petras tells us here)…

McChrystal’s rise to leadership is marked by his central role in directing special operations teams engaged in extrajudicial assassinations, systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy missions. He is the very embodiment of the brutality and gore that accompanies military-driven empire building. Between September 2003 and August 2008, McChrystal directed the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations (JSO) Command which operates special teams in overseas assassinations.

…

Putting McChrystal in charge of the expanded Afghanistan-Pakistan military operations means putting a notorious practitioner of military terrorism – the torture and assassination of opponents to US policy – at the center of US foreign policy.

And if that sounds crazy, consider that we would be increasing our troop presence on behalf of the government of President Hamid Karzai, for whom drug kingpin and war criminal General Abdul Rashid Dostum returned to help for the purposes of Karzai's re-election, as noted here (the Brave New Films post tells us that Dostum)…

…is responsible for a 2001 massacre in which he and his men stuffed thousands of prisoners into metal containers, suffocating most and then shooting at close range those who survived. Physicians for Human Rights uncovered the massacre and Dostum’s attempt to cover it up, a cover-up aided by the U.S. government (Dostum was a CIA asset at the time).

Peachy; that being said, the Afghan media deserves credit for refusing to censor stories of election-related violence, as noted here (silly me, I always thought it was more insulting to people to hide the truth from them than to treat them like adults and share it instead).

Fortunately, there is a sliver of a silver lining, and it is based on this account by Michael Ware of Time Magazine, who tells us that the Obama Administration is interested in bringing Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to the negotiating table with Pakistan (this is in line with what Ware said on “Real Time” a few weeks ago)…

The acknowledgment of on-going communication with Taliban forces using sanctuary in Pakistan to launch military strikes against U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan is part of a new diplomatic overture to help the Obama administration find an end to the long-running conflict.

In a CNN exclusive interview, Pakistan military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said in return for any role as a broker between the United States and the Taliban, Pakistan wants concessions from Washington over Islamabad's concerns with longtime rival India.

And senior U.S. officials have told CNN the Obama Administration is willing both to talk to top Taliban leaders and to raise some of Pakistan's concerns with India.

As a certain Winnie Churchill once said, “to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”

And speaking of the British Empire, Wikipedia tells us the following about the result of the Third Afghan War, which led to Afghanistan’s independence from their supposed benefactor…

Deciding the outcome of the Third Afghan War is somewhat difficult. Ostensibly, by virtue of the fact that the British repulsed the Afghan invasion and drove them from Indian territory and that Afghan cities felt the weight of the Royal Air Force's bombers, the result of the conflict was a British tactical victory. However, in achieving this, the British and Indian troops suffered almost double the amount of casualties that the Afghans suffered and so, as such, a certain degree of tarnish must be placed upon their victory. Therefore at best it can only be seen as a minor tactical victory for the British.

There is no need for President Obama to fully embrace the Afghanistan conflict as some “honorable war” to be fought as a result of the 9/11 attacks (which, let us never forget, was an intelligence failure above all else). Yes, as I’ve said many times, I want to see bin Laden’s head mounted on a pike and paraded in the town square, but not at an ever-escalating price to be paid by our service people, taking fire in a war that can only be resolved through a political settlement.

Obama has no choice but to remedy our country's economic misery inflicted by his clueless predecessor in office. Given the deteriorating landscape of battle in Afghanistan and the surrounding area and the questionable (at best) actions and motives of the major players involved (including McCain who, being a Republican, would like nothing better than to see Obama get a “black eye” here), I would advise our commander-in-chief to start working on a withdrawal timetable in that region also, along with Iraq.

I would hate to read a Wikipedia article one day claiming that the war we are fighting in that region amounted to nothing more than “a minor tactical victory” for us as well.