USA Today has a piece today headlined “Drawdown’s effects debated”– meaning the timetable for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
The article starts with critical comments from U.S. military officials David Petraeus and Mike Mullen, who say they think the troop withdrawals are too much, too soon. And on the other side of this debate? USA Today explains: “Critics however say the drawdown risks reversing hard-won gains against the Taliban.” In other words, critics who question the wisdom of the troop withdrawal.
The piece quotes a litany of such pro-war voices: Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Danielle Pletka from the right wing American Enterprise Institute and former Bush UN ambassador John Bolton.
The piece finally includes one expert– Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations– who stresses that there will still be plenty of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. I guess he would qualify as the dove.
Don’t debates usually involve people who have different opinions?
We’ve been looking at the illusion of a debate for a long time in this country. Pacifists are simply irrelevant in the land of Media Inc.
> Pacifists
Forget about pacifists. It turns out that even having on of those “screw them, we are out of here” “hard-headed realists” is too much to ask for.
For a good laugh about this see Alexander Cockburn’s The Tedium Twins.
Cool heads need to prevail. Women’s rights should not be sacrificed or neglected for expedient troop withdrawal. Condemning half the population to a life of poverty, ignorance, and abuse isn’t an option. While a well-trained cadre of battle-tested military personnel is important, so are the arguments of thoughtful pacifists. There is a balance to be achieved so the fruits of everyone’s sacrifice can be fully appreciated.
At this time there is said to be 25 thousand “enemy” combatants in Afghanistan.Afghan gov forces now number 275 thousand trained and equipped by us.We have done what we set out to do.There does come a time……….
Forget al Qaeda and the Taliban. The invasion of Afghanistan was on the drawing board before 9/11. The “terrorist” excuse is just that – an excuse. The REAL reasons we are in Afghanistan are:
1. Permanent bases, which, along with the bases in Iraq are there to surround and watch Iran (which has increased in influence due to OUR invasion and destabilization of Iraq). There is still no evidence whatsoever that Iran is building a nuclear weapon – that ended when they found out (thanks to us) that Iraq had no such weapons. But, we are a suspicious and paranoid nation, and we have never forgiven Iran for throwing out the Shah (who gave the West access to his country’s oil supplies,) so . . . .
2. The proposed oil pipelines across Afghanistan from the Caspian basin. After all these years of trying to keep our hegemony in the region and control the flow of oil, we are still playing the same game. China and India want more oil, and we must not let them have “too much”. Also, some “American” corporations (they are actually multinational these days) are involved in the pipeline building and transport of that oil, and we must protect their profits.
3. Those rare earth elements that have been known to exist in Afghanistan for some time. It has been said that the mining of these could help Afghans and their economy, but you can bet Afghans will not have many of the profits. These elements are too scarce outside of China and the Congo for the US to shrug off such valuable resources to a strugglling people. No, WE will “help” Afghanistan to “protect” and mine these elements for the benefit of big business. As General Smedley Butler said, “War is a racket.” This country, along with most others, has seldom fought a war for altruistic reasons – that posture is to gain our approval and support. If we were told the REAL reasons, we would give them too much trouble.
4. Last, but not least, we need to keep close tabs on the Middle East’s, if not the world’s, most dangerous and unstable country, Pakistan. Its nuclear weapons could too easily fall into the hands of extremists, and its competition with India for a share of the Caspian oil could erupt in a war between them far too easily.
There you have it. Things are not as we are told. The threat of permanent war in the coming century will grow along with world population and demand. The lesson of Vietnam was never learned; our military insists that the “insurgents” will eventually realize that they “cannot win”. But, as in Vietnam, they don’t NEED to WIN; they just need to never give up. And just as in Vietnam, they won’t.
Well said, Susan O… In short, we are there to “protect American interests.” You name them very succinctly. While pointing out that those interests have little to do with the average American. Thank you.
Su…….all the things you mentioned are certainly considerations for any sane government.I especially like the idea of silly silly us…….trying to stop pakistani nukes going to every Tom dick and Osama.What are we thinking?But somehow i get the feeling you were not in new york on 911.Or maybe you were.Do you vaguely remember that wall of dust the roared through the streets as those mountains collapsed blocking out the sun?People climbing aboard aircraft never knowing they would never smell the scent of a flower again.Or hear the voice of their children.Do you remember the thuds as people jumped hand in hand and fell 100 stories?Do you remember our demands the Afghanistan turn over OBL and his leadership?Do you remember the sun baked middle finger shown to our president from those factions?Or was it Bush slamming the table yelling magnesium…..magnesium…..I want all the magnesium, Its mine mine mine that started the war?Su please respect our dead.We went to war there to destroy the enemy that inflicted such grievous loss on us.There is an afghan company manufacturing a small metal diode used in out military hardware.It employs about two hundred people(read about it in a business mag).Dont think that was in the grand plan of war either.
“Do you remember our demands the Afghanistan turn over OBL and his leadership?Do you remember the sun baked middle finger shown to our president from those factions?”
AP
JALALABAD, Afghanistan â┚¬“â┚¬“ A senior Taliban leader said Sunday that the Islamic militia would be willing to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country if the United States halts the bombing of Afghanistan and provides evidence against him. President Bush quickly rejected the offer.
Before the start of the air campaign, the Taliban had demanded evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the attack and had offered to try him before an Islamic court inside Afghanistan â┚¬“ proposals that the United States promptly rejected.
The United States launched the airstrikes Oct. 7 after weeks of pressing the Taliban to give up bin Laden unconditionally.
BWABPHP: BUSH WAS A BONEHEAD PRETEND PRESIDENT!