Spoke out. REFUSED to FIGHT.
Peace is so much harder to wage than war.
Besides the immoral reasons for waging this war, there are five main reasons Afghanistan will never be won by the West.
1. Deterioration of international support.
2. It is a tribal society ruled by warlords.
3. The heroin trade is too valuable to be eliminated.
4. The incredibly rugged terrain.
5. The border with Pakistan.
Please go to http://www.ariionkathleenbrindley.com/5afgan.shtml to read more.
The second post is a writing from RAWA, a year old, but well worth the read if you are so inclined.
September 15, 2010
Revelations
By Eric S. Margolis
THE London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), is the world’s leading think tank for military affairs. It represents the top echelon of defense experts, retired officers and senior military men, spanning the globe from the United States and Britain to China, Russia and India.
I’ve been an IISS member for over 20 years. IISS’s reports are always authoritative but usually cautious and diplomatic, sometimes dull. However, two weeks ago the IISS issued an explosive report on Afghanistan that is shaking Washington and its Nato allies.
The report, presided over by the former deputy director of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI-6, says
has been "exaggerated"
by the western powers.
The US-led mission in Afghanistan
has "ballooned" out of all proportion
from its original aim
of disrupting and defeating al-Qaeda.
The US-led war in Afghanistan, says IISS,
using uncharacteristically blunt language,
is "a long-drawn-out disaster".
Just recently, CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 50 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Yet US President Barack Obama has tripled the number of US soldiers there to 120,000 to fight Al Qaeda.
The IISS report goes on to acknowledge the presence of western troops in Afghanistan is actually fueling national resistance. I saw the same phenomena during the 1980’s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
These people are a rugged hill people, fierce and independent. They do not want to bow down to the West. They do not, on the whole, want "democracy" enforced upon them. Every child knows the expression, "You can take a horse to water but you cannot make him drink." The same holds true for the Afghan people and "democracy". They have made it clear, they do not want it! Who are we to insist they "modernize"?
Obama may have made this "his" war, but this criminal was the one who followed the PNAC plans who got things started.Interestingly, the portion of the report overseen by the former MI-6 Secret Intelligence Service deputy chief, Nigel Inskster, finds little Al Qaeda threat elsewhere, notably in Somalia and Yemen. Yet Washington is beefing up its attacks on both turbulent nations.
The last time I looked, the outcome of our capitalist democracy was very sick and in need of much care and attention ~ the care and attention being foolishly spent where it is not wanted.
The entire Al Qaeda situation is beyond belief. The West creates this group to fight the Russians in a war that they helped bring about and then shape them into "the deadliest force and threat to the planet". This group has done many very wicked things, but remember where they came to and possibly to whom their allegiance still lies.
Abandoning its usual discretion, IISS said it was issuing these warnings because the deepening war in Afghanistan was threatening the west’s security interests by distracting its leaders from the world financial crisis and Iran, and burning through scarce funds needed elsewhere.
Truer words have rarely been spoken in high political circles although I believe Iran is a red herring when it is actually Pakistan we need be concerned about!
The IISS’s findings are a direct challengeto Obama,
Britain’s new prime minister, David Cameron,
and other US allies with troops in Afghanistan.
This report undermines their rational used to sustain the increasingly unpopular conflict. It will certainly convince skeptics that the real reason for occupation of Afghanistan has to do with oil, excluding China from the region, and keeping watch on nuclear-armed Pakistan.
The report also goes on to propose an exit strategy from the Afghan War. Western occupation troops, IISS proposes, should be sharply reduced and confined to Kabul and northern Afghanistan, which is mostly ethnic Tajik and Uzbek.
Southern Afghanistan ~ Taliban country ~ should be vacated by Western forces and left alone. Taliban would be allowed to govern its own half of the nation until some sort of loose, decentralized federal system can be implemented. This was, in fact, pretty much the way Afghanistan operated before the 1979 Soviet invasion.
Remember. Ronnie Raygun, was very vocal in his affection for the Taliban and compared them to the Founding Fathers of America in bravery and moral values. Ah but then, Ronnie was an actor and sold cigarettes too!
Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan is turning against the increasingly wobbly western occupation forces.The US-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, openly prepares for direct peace talks with Taliban and its allies ~ in spite of intense opposition from the US, Britain and Canada. Pro-government Afghan forces are increasingly demoralized.
Only the Tajik and Uzbek militias, and Afghan Communist Party, both supported by India, Russia and Iran, want to keep fighting the Pashtun Taliban.
Never forget, where there is a Communist, there are Jews and/or Jewish funds.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar last week proclaimed the western occupiers were rapidly losing the war. He may well be correct. Nothing is going right for the US-backed Kabul regime or its western defenders. Even the much-ballyhooed US offensive at Marjah, designed to smash Taliban resistance, was an embarrassing fiasco. Civilian casualties from US bombing continue to mount.
Polls report 60% of Americans
think the war not worth fighting.
The IISS bombshell comes on the heels of the most dramatic part of the British Chilcot Inquiry into the origins of the invasion of Iraq.
the former head of Britain’s
domestic security service, MI-5,
testified that the Iraq War
was generated by
a farrago of lies
and faked evidence
from the Blair government.
What we call "terrorism" is largely caused by the western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, she testified.
The truth about Iraq and Afghanistan is finally emerging. Afghanistan may again prove to be "the graveyard of empires".
Let me see, Kissinger, Begin, Sharon, Obama, now Blair. All have received major awards as men of peace. Is this what they mean by doublespeak?
It seems the bloodier your hands, the more peaceful you are. Is that because you have gone to such extraordinary measures to kill everyone?
Eric S. Margolis is a contributing editor to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers, writing mainly about the Middle East and South Asia.
By Linda Heard
October 13, 2009
RAWA
During the six months from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2009 there were 1,013 innocent Afghan fatalities that is almost double the figure for the same period in 2007. Figures released earlier this month by the US Defense Department show that 792 members of the American military have lost their lives since the 2001 invasion along with 481 coalition soldiers.
The pressing question is this:
Has the sacrifice of so many innocents been in vain or has the coalition managed to move its objectives forward for the good of all concerned?Let’s analyze those purported objectives one by one.
First of all, the invasion was a response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on US soil when Washington’s main targets were a bearded billionaire troglodyte, who was believed to have orchestrated them, along with a one-eyed Taliban mullah who proffered the terrorists safe harbor. Until now, Osama Bin Laden has evaded capture while Mullah Omar still leads the insurgency. The coalition gets no brownie points on that score.
that there is no hard evidence
that Bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11.
Let us also remember that the Taliban is funded and supported by our good friends in Saudi Arabia which is the home of the fundamentalist form of Islam known as Wahhabism practiced by the Taliban.
The second objective was to bring freedom and democracy to a long-suffering population. A worthy ideal, no doubt, but how is this working out?
It’s not.
This man is making candy. A people who live under foreign occupation and in constant fear of their lives are not “free” in any sense. And for the Afghans, more than most, the loss of their sovereignty is tantamount to humiliation.
As for “democracy”, the country is democratic in name only.
During recent elections, voter turnout was ridiculously low in some regions while there are allegations of massive vote rigging. According to EU election monitors, up to 1.5 million votes were suspect, including a third of those cast in favor of President Hamid Karzai.
Today, every 30 minutes an Afghan woman dies during childbirth; 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate; only 30 percent of girls have access to education; one in every three women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence and 70-80 percent of young Afghan women are forced into marriage.
Women can, indeed, listen to music but their life expectancy is a shocking 44 years. Arab News Oct. 13, 2009.
Remember the plight of Afghan women under the rule of the Taliban? For a brief moment in time their perceived aspirations were embraced by America’s former first lady Laura Bush and Tony Blair’s wife Cherie. In a radio address to the nation just weeks after the bombing of Kabul, Mrs. Bush told the American people how life for Afghan women had been hard and oppressive.
Laura Bush delivering her pro-war punch line. “Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment.”
“Women have been denied access to doctors when they are sick...even small displays of joy are outlawed ~ children aren’t allowed to fly kites; their mothers face beatings for laughing out loud. Women cannot work outside the home, or even leave the homes by themselves.”
Clearly, Mrs. Bush jumped the gun. Today, every 30 minutes an Afghan woman dies during childbirth; 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate; only 30 percent of girls have access to education; one in every three women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence and 70-80 percent of young Afghan women are forced into marriage. Women can, indeed, listen to music but their life expectancy is a shocking 44 years.
In light of the above catalog of failures, what on earth is NATO still doing there? Word is the coalition can’t afford to walk away because as long as “terrorists” are battling in Afghanistan, they are unable to take the fight to the streets of America and Europe.
But wait! US National Security Adviser James Jones recently claimed that there are less than 100 Al-Qaeda fighters left in Afghanistan without either bases or the capability of launching attacks on Western cities. S
o the Al-Qaeda argument repeated by dozens of coalition diplomats in an attempt to get the public’s blessing for this seemingly endless war has been officially shot down!
In the meantime, President Barack Obama’s senior military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal has controversially requested a further 40,000 troops, which has prompted a congressional partisan divide. Some of those opposed believe the US would be better served by training Afghan forces.
Is this why more troops are required?
The more gung-ho camp fears that America’s commander in chief might be wavering. It appears that harsh reality might, at last, be hitting home. The Taliban are going nowhere and are so numerous and influential that they cannot be wiped out. There is some talk that Obama is even considering paying members of the lower Taliban echelons to switch sides or holding talks with so-called “moderate” Taliban.
There is little appetite for this war among Western public and America’s allies are itching to shut the door on the fight.
Alas, Canadian PM Stephen Harper is still gung ho on anything to serve his Chabad masters and has shown no interest in ending this yet another war for Israel.
It’s surely time for the US president to face an unpalatable truth. Even the mighty superpower with the most sophisticated weapons in the world can’t win them all. Sometimes victory entails knowing when to quit.
This boy is the only one in his family alive
from the bombs that hit their home while they slept.
AFGHANISTAN ~ CONVOY OF DEATH!
Here is the story of the 8000 Talibs who surrendered to the Americans and promised they would not be harmed. The bodies of many thousands of them were found in a mass grave. Here is the story with disturbing details that puts forth that America participated in an absolutely bloody horror of a war crime. It is grainy but it is the truth. Needless to say, the Pentagon claims this did not happen.As possible Afghan war-crimes evidence removed, US silent
FOIA Documents Concerning Dasht-e Leili Mass Grave in Afghanistan
Physicians for Human Rights Calls for Probe into Removal of Mass Grave in Afghanistan
More on Abdul Rashid Dostum
“US troops are committing war crimes”, AHRO
The Death Convoy of Afghanistan
Witnesses Say Many Taliban Died in Custody," Carlotta Gall, New York Times, December 11, 2001
Study Hints at Mass Killing of the Taliban," Carlotta Gall, New York Times, May 1, 2002
Slow Death on the Jail Convoy of Misery," Julius Strauss, The Daily Telegraph (London), March 19, 2002
Were U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Complicit in a Massacre?", Michelle Goldberg, Salon.com, June 15, 2002
Did the US Massacre Taliban?", Neil Mackay, Sunday Herald (Glasgow), June 16, 2002
The Shebergan Famine," Washington Post (e-Arianna), April 26, 2002
General's Name Is Byword for Brutality," Julius Strauss, The Daily Telegraph (London), October 24, 2002
U.N. Afghan Investigators Probe Mass Burial Sites," Brain Williams, Reuters (e-Arianna), May 7, 2002US Had Role in Taleban Prisoner Deaths'", Andrew McLeod, The Scotsman (Edinburgh), June 14, 2002
Afghan war documentary charges US with mass killings of POWs," Stefan Steinberg, World Socialist Web Site, June 17, 2002
Why is the US media blacking out documentary on war crimes in Afghanistan?", Kate Randall, World Socialist Web Site, June 21, 2002
Further evidence of a massacre of Taliban prisoners," Peter Schwarz, World Socialist Web Site, June 29, 2002
More evidence of US war crimes in Afghanistan: Taliban POWs suffocated inside cargo containers," World Socialist Web Site, Jerry White, December 13, 2001
Documenting the Massacre in Mazar," Genevieve Roja, AlterNet, July 9, 2002
Pentagon denies Afghan torture claims," Gareth Harding and Elizabeth Manning, June 13, 2002
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