Afghanistan: another failure of "nation building"

The US spent 20 years, around $1 trillion (closer to $2 trillion if you count long-term costs like treatment for soldiers), over 2300 American soldier lives - to say nothing of time, money and lives spent by European and other countries - trying to build Afghanistan into a viable state. 

 By many accounts, the Afghan army was staffed by decent men who were not given the tools to succeed by their corrupt political non-leaders. 

All that money, time and lives and the country is heading back to square one with the barbarians back in control. It's a tragic day for the people of Afghanistan, who’ve seen many tragic decades. 

No one seriously believes another few months or years would've made much of a difference in that regard.
 

Can we Americans please finally admit that imperialism and nation-building is something that can no longer work in the modern world (ignoring whether it was ever morally justified)? Let's stop starting wars that we are incapable - that no one is capable - of finishing. In the end, the only people who will have benefited from the last 20 years is "defense" contractor stockholders.

Lies and the lying liars who tell them

I’ve decided I’m not going to listen to the president’s sales pitch for yet another war with a Muslim country that poses no threat to us after hearing his secretary of state angrily lie, “We are not talking about going to war!”

If this administration is going to deem cyber attacks an act of war and then declare that cruise missile strikes are not, it’s not worthy of trust.

Government criminalizes those who shine light on its crimes

In America, when the government commits crimes, it’s the people who reveal those crimes who are treated as criminals.

Only days after President Obama assured us that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program was in compliance with the law, The Washington Post has revealed that the program is actually a serial law-breaker.

Thanks to leaks provided by Edward Snowden, the paper reported that, according to the NSA’s own audit, the agency violated thelaw ‘thousands of times’ in the 12 month period of 2011-12.The NSA chief waved this off as nothing more than mere oversights. Do you think Snowden could get away with the same argument?

The head of the special secret court charged with oversight of the NSA’s activities has conceded that his ability to provide proper oversight isquite limited.

The statecan violate the law repeatedly and with complete impunity, but it’s Snowden who is the most wanted man in the world for publicizing these crimes.

This is yet another piece of evidence that, contrary to liberal self-delusion, the Obama administration is just as criminal as its predecessor.

Update: Looks like the UK government follows the same path. The Huffington Post reports that the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald was detained at London's Heathrow Airport under the country's Terrorism Act. Greenwald has been a high-profile critic of the UK's and US' attacks on civil liberties and has been instrumental in expose their abuses.

The conservative vision of America: a spoiled brat

The conservative vision of America in the world is that of a spoiled child. To them, the United States is like that boy we all know whose mommy has spent his whole life telling him how special he is, how uniquely amazing he is, how he should be immune from any consequences the big, bad world might impose for improper behavior because that special little angel can’t possibly do any wrong. The boy's self-esteem must be protected at any cost, even if it means he isn't expected to learn any important life lessons. He is never told he is doing something wrong because that might harm his precious self-esteem. And may God protect the person who suggest that the boy is occasionally imperfect, for the wrath of the boy’s enabler shall be merciless. This is how conservatives treat America in the world.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam... it’s worse

This weekend, the US will have occupied Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Union did in the 1980s. Often credited for helping bring down the Soviet empire, the occupation of Afghanistan is often referred to as the USSR’s Vietnam. America’s own occupation of Afghanistan is also referred to by many as Vietnam redux. New York Times blogger Richard Wright disagrees: he says the war in Afghanistan is quite a bit more harmful to America than Vietnam.

He writes: And how many anti-American jihadists has the war created on the battlefield itself? There’s no telling, but recent headlines suggest this admittedly impressionistic conclusion: We’re creating them faster than we’re killing them. And some of these enemies, unlike the Vietcong, could wind up killing Americans after the war is over — in South Asia, in the Middle East, in Europe, in America.

[...]

Al Qaeda’s ideology offers nothing that many of the world’s Muslims actually want — except, perhaps, when they feel threatened by the West, a feeling that isn’t exactly dulled by the presence of American troops in Muslim countries.

None of this is particularly revolutionary to students of world history. Overreach inevitably causes empires to collapse, by creating hostility and resentment and suppressing national and cultural identity. This hostility and resentment usually mystifies the imperial power who has deluded itself to believe that people want to be dominated by foreigners, so long as those outsiders deem themselves ‘enlightened.’ The power thinks that if it replaces one for of overlordship with another, the victims will be grateful for Change. In essence, the imperial power thinks that its own perceived beneficience and omnipotence invalidates human nature.

I almost forgot something that Rep. Dennis Kucinich pointed out: Afghanistan is already America’s longest war... and with no end in sight.

The Wikileaks' revelations will harm Afghans and that shows why we need to get out

The Obama administration freaked out at the historic leak of Afghanistan war documents by the whistleblower website Wikileaks and subsequent publication of articles based on that information by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the UK Guardian and Germany's der Spiegel.

Many people, including Daniel Ellsberg himself, compared the significance of what Wikileaks did to the release of the Pentagon Papers. Though, the respected non-profit journalism organization Pro Publica disagrees.

I tend to side more with Pro Publica. The Wikileaks information paints a damning portrait of a morass that was never going to be winnable, but even though I'm no South Asia expert, there wasn't a lot of stuff I hadn't heard before.

It's certainly important in that it illustrates to governments and bureaucracies that secrets are a lot harder to keep in the Internet age and that's certainly a good thing. Bureaucracies, even those of sainted 'liberal' administrations, tend to loathe transparency even though secrecy is the enemy of democracy and good governance.

As expected, the Obama administration and the Pentagon blasted the leaks, as did Afghan president Hamad Karzai. They all claimed it would put Afghan lives at risk. It goes without saying that there's a huge element of spin in this. 'National security' is the perpetual claim any time anything comes out to offer a real version of reality that contradicts the officially approved version of reality.

Yet here's also an element of truth to the claims.

But I think that element of truth is even more damning to the cause of the eternal occupation. How can the foreign occupation possibly succeed (whatever 'success' means) if Afghans who openly cooperate with it are literally risking their lives?

Americans like to believe we can accomplish anything if we just beat our head against a stone wall a little bit harder and never give up until that wall comes down. But what can we possibly accomplish if Afghans are too fearful to work with us? What kind of Afghanistan can be built if Afghans are too afraid to be a part of its construction?

Or maybe the definition of 'success' has other priorities than the security of Afghans and Americans.

And if there's any doubt that the present sainted 'liberal' administration has no interest in even beginning the dismantling the American empire, look no further than the fact that Pres. Obama has ordered all federal agencies to prepare for a five percent budget cut for the next fiscal year... except for the Pentagon, while will be exempted.

A kinder, gentler Empire

This year's version of the empty 'vote for the lesser of two evils' blackmail is that a McCain administration would be Bush lite and soooooo much worse than a Clinton or Obama adminstration, especially in international affairs, that we have to vote for Democrat no matter what.

Turns out foreign policy experts disagree with this 'conventional wisdom'.

They echo the Naderite contention that while both Democrats might tweak foreign policy around the largely inconsequential edges, neither would change it in any fundamental fashion.

Sweeping oratory aside, a President Barack Obama or a President Hillary Rodham Clinton -- let alone a President John McCain -- might chart a course in the world that's surprisingly similar to that of George W. Bush in his second term, summarizes Washington Post writer Michael Michael Abramowitz.

As I've mentioned in this blog before, neither Democrat offers any substantive challenge to the American empire's core tenet. They merely offer the same old militarism but with a more charismastic face. They'll meddle in other countries' internal affairs for the benefit of the multinationals that own them, but at least they'll do it with a smile!

Philip Zelikow, a University of Virginia professor who served for two years as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, echoed that thought. Obama and Clinton's "critique in general of the administration, aside from Iraq, is we are going to be more competent and collegial," he said. "They don't really debate many of the underlying premises of the administration's current policies."

This shouldn't come as any surprise. Both John Kerry in '04 and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in '06 made the basis of their campaigns the premise "Bush's foreign policy is fundamentally right. It's just the execution that needs work."

Sadly, many desperate, self-described progressives bit on this hook, line and sinker.

A kinder, gentler empire is still an empire.


Reminder: if you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

Enough malfeasance to make the head spin

I've bookmarked so many articles on malfeasance and incompetence in Washington that I've decided to condense them all into one entry for the purpose of saving time, even though each merits an essay of its own.

-From The Washington Post: The CIA has decided to release files about its covert, not-always-legal activities from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. There was warrantless domestic spying against political opponents ordered by Presidents Johnson and Nixon (the more things change....). The files also revealed details on the CIA's long suspected, but never confirmed, role in the assassination of then-Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. The agency also apparently offered a Mafia boss $150,000 to kill Cuban strongman Fidel Castro. A decade later, then-director William Colby stated, "I can say, under oath if need be, that the CIA has never carried out a political assassination, nor has it induced, employed or suggested one which occurred." Perhaps his spirit was responsible for the 'Iraq has weapons of mass destruction' determination.

-From The Washington Post: yet another appeal to close the Guantanamo Bay kidnapee camp. Though the paper warned that shutting down the camp, however warranted, would not automatically undo the damage it caused to America's credibility and moral authority. It also cautioned the government against merely shipping the kidnapees back to their home countries, where they may be subjected to torture and other forms of abuse. The administration doesn't want them moved to American soil because then they might be subject to the rule of law, legality being something the White House has always been desperate to avoid.

-From The Washington Post. Where do I get off saying that the White House has always been desperate to avoid respecting the law? It's not exactly a secret. The president has openly flaunted this contempt. The Post notes that President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes. Basically, if he doesn't like part of legislation that HE HIMSELF SIGNS INTO LAW, he just decides to ignore it. If this is the Iraqi government's model for how to conduct democracy, then that explains a lot.

-From Reuters: The CIA doesn't have a monopoly on abuses. FBI officials admitted that they may have violated the law or its rules more than 1,000 times since 2002 in collecting data about phone calls, e-mails and financial records while investigating terrorism or espionage suspects. Apologists told us that we should just give the executive (that's the presidency, not the vice-presidency, it seems) any power it desires without question because nothing wrong could possibly come of it. Privacy? That's sooooo 19th century.

-From Amnesty International: In the same vein, the human rights' organization took the CIA to task for kidnaping people. A practice euphemistically known as 'enforced disappearance,' a term that eerily invokes similar actions taken by fascist South American juntas during the 1970s and 1980s against that era's boogeyman: communists. AI also reports, even more sickeningly, that the CIA has kidnaped the wives and children of suspects for interrogations and... to 'secure the capture of their husband or father.' Click your heels twice and repeat after me: they only reason they hate us is because we're free.


-From Newsweek: Think Bush is the first president to invoke Divine Right in rationalizing a foreign military aggression? Not exactly. In 1898, President William McKinley was trying figure out an excuse to conquer the Philippines. "I walked the floor of The White House night after night until midnight," he recalled. "I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance. There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them ... " Newsweek pointed out that the Filipinos were already Christianized (Roman Catholic) and probably weren't to keen on being dominated by a foreign power. The brutal insurgency that followed cost the lives of over 4,000 Americans and more than half a million Filipinos. The weekly noted that this is where the torture technique of waterboarding, so eagerly championed by Vice-President Cheney (oops, I mean Senate president Cheney), was developed. This war (and Algeria with the French), not Vietnam, is no doubt the closest analogy to the disaster that's happening in Iraq.

-From: The Associated Press. Oh wait, Iraq is not a disaster. After four years, the world's most powerful military and its allies control a whopping 40 percent of Baghdad. At this rate, it'll only take until 2013 until we control the whole city and can declare once again Mission Accomplished!

-From: Democracy Rising. Maybe this is why the man who commanded US forces in Iraq for the first year said, "I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time." Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said that America should get real about its expectations. "I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will -- not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat." He must hate America and want the Evil Doers to win too!

-From: Alternet. Remember when the snake oil salesmen were trying to peddle us the aggression against Iraq? They promised us the war would be quick and relatively painless. We'd go in there. Iraqis would welcome us with open arms. We'd be in and out of there in a few years, just like after World War II. Now, Bush is saying that our troops will be in Iraq for another half century... or more. To Bush, the model is not West Germany or Japan, but South Korea, where US troops have been stationed since 1953 (earlier if you count the war). Alternet called it such a naked acknowledgement of America's long-term designs on carving out a strategic foothold in the region that even the milquetoast American press had to acknowledge it. Wonder why they didn't mention this in 2002?

-From Tomdispatch.com. But wait a second? America doesn't have 'long-term designs on carving out a strategic foothold' in the Middle East or anywhere else. The US military is only ever used for the sole purpose of defending American soil, not for any economic reasons. Tomdispatch.com adds As Chalmers Johnson has pointed out in his book The Sorrows of Empire, the United States has, mainly since World War II, set up at least 737 [foreign military] bases, mega and micro -- and probably closer to 1,000 -- worldwide. An astonishing number when you consider there are only about 200 countries in the world. According to our national fairy tale, the US is a republic, not an empire. Well, our 'republic' that spends almost as much on 'national defense' as the rest of the world combined. So wouldn't you think that a country that by itself accounts for 48 percent of all global military spending should feel a lot more secure than Americans do right now? It makes you wonder when Americans will finally connect the dots and realize that our meddling, expansionist foreign policy has served to make us less safe, not more.