Afghanistan is not another Vietnam, It is another Afghanistan - Obama Leads the Empire to Tragedy

By Scott Weinstein

December 1, 2009

President Obama’s intensification of the Afghanistan war announced tonight, showed the few of us who protested Bush's rush to war in 2001, that they are the same. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, Obama’s web of lies and aggrandizement destroys his promise of “change we can believe in”.

Since the 2001 U.S. invasion, a few hundred Al Quaeda, a thousand allied troops, a few thousand Taliban and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed by the war. This begs the question: Why is the U.S., Canada and NATO occupying Afghanistan?

The first Obama lie

The U.S. must prevent a safe haven for Al Quaeda.

Al Quaeda is a small loose network that comprises a few hundred people in the Afghanistan / Pakistan. If they are as amorphous and flexible as the western intelligence says they are, Al Quaeda has essentially disappeared from the war region and moved elsewhere.

If Al Quaeda is staying in the region, it is not because it is the only place to launch attacks on the west, but because they want to fight the invaders.

The 9-11 hijackers did not come from Afghanistan or even Pakistan. Most of them came from Saudi Arabia, via Germany, Arizona and other un-targeted places.

9-11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, captured in 2002, will face trial in New York. The U.S. does not know where Osama Bin Laden resides.

The Second Obama lie

The Taliban, who are Al Quaeda’s ally, must be defeated.

The Taliban are not Al Quaeda allies, but are fundamentalist Afghan nationalists. Evolved from the U.S.-backed anti-Soviet mujahideen, they allied with Al Quaeda in the 1990’s out of convenience. Bin Laden gave them a lot of money, and they rented him land and some security. The Taliban even came to the U.S. to discuss a joint gas pipeline deal. The Al Quaeda came to the U.S… well you get the difference.

Now the Taliban are not fighting for Al Quaeda, they are fighting the U.S., Canadian and the NATO invaders. Just as they and other Afghans successfully routed the Soviet invaders, their grandparents successfully fought the British occupation earlier in 1919. Previously, Afghans defeated the Macedonians, the Safavid Persians, and the Romans invaders.

Vietnam only kicked out two empires. The Afghans have expelled many.

The third Obama lie

We must fix the current government control Al Quaeda and the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s Karzai government is a coalition of warlords, drug-lords and other corrupt men with different priorities and interests - not a unified noble national mission.

Malalia Joya is a brave Afghan woman elected to parliament, and then expelled from parliament and hunted by the current government. Joya puts the situation in stark perspective: the current US/Canadian-backed Afghan government is no better for the Afghan people than the Taliban.

Joya explained in Montreal November 24, “We are fighting against occupation. We are fighting against warlords, and the Taliban. It is easier to fight against one enemy than two. So we need your help to end the occupation.”

Democracy, women's rights and opium-war off the table

At least give Obama some credit for dropping some of Bush’s propaganda.

The U.S./NATO operations have killed thousands more women and children than Americans died in the 9-11 attacks. We read about wedding parties mistakenly targeted by U.S. drones and NATO fighter jets, but thousands of refugees have died of exposure and starvation in the cold mountains fleeing U.S. bombing campaigns.

Women’s rights have literally taken a beating under the Karzai government warlords. Women have been raped, beaten, tortured and killed - just as under the Taliban. The Karzai government enacted a repressive Sharia law while the Western governments continued to arm and fund them. Today, girls are forbidden to attend school in most of Afghanistan.

Why are we fighting in Afghanistan?

John Foster is an energy economist and author of "Afghanistan and the new great game: Prized pipeline route could explain West's stubborn interest in poor, remote land.” Foster writes, “Afghanistan is a strategic piece of real estate in the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance in the region”.

The military industrial complex benefits from war. It primes the defense contractor’s pump, employs a massive amount of political and human capital, and helps the capitalist system control priorities.

By Obama’s calculation, this unpopular war costing more lives, 30,000 more troops, many more years, and tens of billions of dollars yearly is not too high a price for the empire, yet.

However, our opposition can drive the political cost up rapidly, and end the Afghanistan tragedy sooner.
Thanks to Scott Camil for this letter