Dick Morris was on the O’Reilly Factor the other night (10/28/09) advocating a troop escalation in Afghanistan—and his argument was characteristically peculiar:
Listen, terrorist gangs like Al-Qaeda are like HIV virus. They swim in your bloodstream. They don’t make you sick. When they latch on to a cell, a nation state, and they use the DNA of that cell, they then become a threat. When they use the accoutrements of nationhood—secure boundaries, a diplomatic corps, an export and import trade, an air force and navy, a tax system, a conscript population—then they can knock down the World Trade Center. We have got to stop Al-Qaeda from taking over Afghanistan. And that means stopping the Taliban.
It’s hard to say what exactly Afghanistan’s diplomatic corps, let alone the landlocked nation’s navy, had to do with the September 11 attacks, which were largely planned and executed by Saudi Arabian students based in Germany and the United States. But you have to give Morris credit for being loopy enough to make the case that occupying Afghanistan is necessary to prevent terrorism in the United States; generally corporate media pundits consider that assumption to be self-evident, and don’t bother to explain it.
Calling Morris “loopy” really doesn’t get at the reality, does it? He knows it’s a lie – he knows why the US occupies Afghanistan.
The problem is that the vast majority of people in this country who oppose this hell don’t. They don’t know from pipeline routes and Grand Game geopolitics. I wish I was smart enough to lay it out, but the fundamentals don’t take much intelligence to suss, do they?
There’s a shitload of money to be made from the resources in the region, and the US wants to control it and prevent their rapidly rising rivals from doing so.
It’s always been the way of empire, hasn’t it? Spices and slaves, oil and gas – kill whomever you have to to own them, and say you’re converting the natives to Christianity or democracy or whatever other lies have been told for centuries to justify the bloody lust for power.
This war isn’t a “tragic mistake”. It’s not about “revenge” or “women’s rights”. It’s about raw, naked and ancient evil, and that needs to be understood before it can be defeated.
Generally corporate media pundits consider that assumption to be self-evident, and don’t bother to explain it.
Just yesterday I saw video of Noam Chomsky talking about how the corporate media enforce ideological conformity that way while disclaiming any censorship.
They claim that only time constraints prevent dissenters from being given time to explain their points. But as Chomsky said, it’s the media who allow a fraudulent statement like “We need to escalate in Afghanistan to prevent more terrorism at home” to pass as self-evident, while to deny that is believed to need a long explanation which, darn it, just doesn’t fit into their time frame. They need “concision”. So sorry.
Afghanistan has no resources of note. Afghanistan was/is seen as right of way to transport resources from on areas on to Pakistan and the Arabian sea
Afghanistan has no resources? I beg to differ; Afghanistan produces 80% of the World’s opiates, that is, heroin and morphine so we are talking about huge wads of untaxed, unregulated profit. We do understand that whenever the CIA invades and occupies a country, the drug production of that country at least doubles. This is how the CIA and US Military funds their evil covert operations around the World.
We haven’t already forgotten the Iran/Contra scandal during Bush sr.’s presidency, have we? That was just the tip of the iceberg.
Does anyone seriously still believe the 9/11 story about Al-Qaeda destroying the Twin Towers? Go back and watch the footage: it’s a planned demolition.
We went into Afghanistan for the right reason, to kill Osama BinLadin and as many of his pack as we could lay our hands on.
Because we “dithered” for seven years he and his associates got away and a bunch of good soldiers got killed. Because we “dithered” their loss was for nothing. We had our chance and we blew it!
Let’s admit it and get the hell out now before more good soldiers die for nothing. No president’s ego is worth one more life. Certainly not Bush’s and, unfortunately for him, not Obama’s either.
Re resources: That was my point about the pipeline routes. I was referring to the “region” – poor choice of words – at large, including the Middle East, which of course has vast amounts of energy resources.
Re time constraints: But they always find time for Michael Jackson, “Balloon Boy” et al, don’t they?
Now that’s news you can use.
“We have got to stop Al-Qaeda from taking over Afghanistan. And that means stopping the Taliban.”
Why doesn’t he put his money where his mouth is and go to Afghanistan himself to stop the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Big Bird and the Flying Pig Flu. I bet he could do a stand up job.
Sorry Doug, you reveal your ignorance with the comment that Afghanistan has no resouces. China just made a deal with the corrupt gov’t to develope one of the world’s largest deposits of copper. There are, and have always been minerals and semi precious stones, fine marbles and Onyx that has been carved for thousands of years.The mountainous regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan have produced produced incredible wealth – unfortunately, only for the rich and greedy.
Yes, it is true, the biggest reason we are there now is to insist that only US companies have control over the pipelines for the oil and gas north.
Afghanistan is not a country. Afghanistan is not a nation. Afghanistan is a string of valleys strung together by a harsh, rugged, sometimes impassable mountain range. Afghanistan is scattered villages of tribal and familial groups loosely connected by trade, a common language and a common religious tradition. Even in the cities the people congregate into neighborhoods of common tribal, familial and/or religious groups.
If you are not of their village or neighborhood, if you do not speak their language you are a foreigner, an outsider, a stranger. If you are a stranger with a gun you are an enemy. As long as there are foreigners with guns on Afghan soil there will be Afghans to fight them. Many have learned that hard lesson the Persians, the Greeks, the Moghuls, the Mongols, the Chinese, the British, the Soviets and now the Americans, us.
Military action is a failure of diplomacy. The Afghans will never be defeated by force. The Afghans will never be subdued by force. They must be charmed, cajoled, enticed, courted family by family, tribe by tribe, village by village, marketplace by marketplace, neighborhood by neighborhood. Nation building must start with trust and respect on the most local levels. It will only happen by diplomacy.
Perhaps it is not being reported. I am hearing nothing about anyone getting out of their cushy embassy offices and going out to the valleys, villages, marketplaces and neighborhoods. Breaking bread, sitting down over a cup of coffee or tea, to ask the Afghan people what they want for their country. Instead of telling them what we think they should have.
They need roads. Are we building roads? Are they building roads? How many Afghans are employed building those road?
Road building in the ruggeg Afghan mountains will be a slow, tedious, expensive proposition. Most Afghans walk, ride donkeys and camels. What is being done to improve the tracks, paths and trails between villages that Afghans have used for millenia until roads are built in those rugged, forbidding mountains.
They need and want electricity. Why are we not contracting with American companies to provide windmills, solar panels and small generating plants that run on biofuels and animal power to supply that need, particularly in their remote mountainous regions and villages. Train Afghans to install, service, repair and run them.
Afghanistan is the perfect laboratory for developing local green alternative energy. Not just for use in Afghanistan, but also for use in the United States and for export to many third world and remote locales. A way to provide power in a remote mountain village in Afghanistan will certainly work in the African bush, the remotest Australian outback or an Inuit village on the edge of the tundra in Alaska. It will give a major boost to our alternative green energy industry. Give the Afghans the power they need. Provide jobs for Afghanistan and the United States.
It will provide alternatives to the poppy production. They can grow cash crops for their biofuel industry, as well as food, in the poppy fields. We can also provide alternative fuel buses and cars so they won’t be dependent on foreign fossil fuel products as are we.
They need and want education. Let Afghan labor build Schools with materials and support we supply them. Find and train Afghans to teach in them. Train local Afghans to protect their schools and their children.
Find moderate and liberal clerics to serve as alternatives for the fundamentalists, violent, angry male bovine excrement that dominates in many parts of Afghanistan. As well as to teach in the madras’ a more moderate, peaceful Islam.
The best kind of business deal is where both sides walk away from the table feeling as though they have gained something. This proposal is a win-win situation. The only losers will be the officials of a corrupt government that will be bypassed and lose their cut.
If this kind of effort is going on I am not hearing any of it in the mainstream media, the alternative press or the internet. Is it because it is not being reported? OR is it because it is not happening.
The approach I propose requires humility rather than arrogance. This so-called ‘christian’ country has never been very big on humility. However, this is a positive approach that has a real chance of success.
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