Usage: President Obama’s decision to send 34,000 more troops into Afghanistan will prove to be a Brobdingnagian calamity.
Brobdingnagian brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn , adjective; 1. Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous. Origin: Brobdingnagian is from Brobdingnag, a country of giants in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Word of the Day | Wednesday, November 25, 2009 | Dictionary.com.
Glenn Greenwald explains why defending human rights and the Constitution wins hearts and minds and is the most American thing you can do.
Dean Baker explains a plan to save jobs that involves the government reimbursing employers so their employees can have more time off. Can’t be done? They already do it in Germany.
Estimated number of Al Qaeda members now operating in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. national security adviser: 100 (one hundred)
(Haper’s Index, December 2009)
General Wesley Clark thinks we should get out of Afghanistan.
“Last week, ExxonMobil became the first U.S. oil company in 35 years to sign an oil-production contract with the government of Iraq,” reports Antonia Juhasz.
William R. Polk argues that we should get out of Afghanistan, because our absence will allow the native political process to get under way leading to a loya jirga, which will legitimate whatever decisions are made.
We cannot be part of this process. The process will not occur if we continue to prop up those in power, giving them no reason to allow a process that will likely reduce their power. On the other hand, if they know we are leaving, their alternative would most certainly be life threatening, rather than simply tipping the balances of power in favor of the native political structure.
The Taliban could likely come out of this process as leaders at first. But it is our military presence that empowers them. Once we leave (and the sooner the better in this regard) the appeal of the Taliban — the group most successfully retaliating against the Western invaders — will wane.
Polk concludes his essay with a description of how to go about leaving Afghanistan and ends with the following paragraph:
To the contrary, getting out of Afghanistan, could lead us toward a reassertion of the principles and purposes that have made our country not just respected for its wealth and power but beloved throughout the world. If we make a sincere effort to live up to the message in President Obama’s address in Cairo – that we are willing to live in a multicultural world – much of the fear and danger we perceive today will become a bad memory. Then we can truly turn toward the serious business of educating our children, providing our citizens with adequate health care and again becoming for the world’s peoples “a city on the hill.”
Informed Comment: Polk: Let America be America, and Depart Afghanistan.
William R. Polk was the member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia from 1961 to 1965 and then professor of history at the University of Chicago where he founded the Middle Eastern Studies Center. He was also president of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs. His most recent book is Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, From Persia to the Islamic Republic, From Cyrus to Ahmadinejad (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, October 27, 2009).
And what exacerbates anti-American sentiment, and therefore the threat of Terrorism? “American direct intervention in the Muslim world” — through our “one sided support in favor of Israel”; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, “the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan”
…
We can’t combat Terrorism by sending our military into Muslim countries. Doing that only exacerbates the problem, since it inevitably intensifies the anti-American sentiment that enables and fuels the terrorist threat. All of that is so basic. It’s been empirically proven over and over during the last decade. It’s not Noam Chomsky or Al Jazeera pointing out these basic truths, but instead, a 2004 Task Force handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to review and assess the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts, principally the wars they were waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Interesting to note that it’s the Republican numbers slipping that are causing the overall all-time low support for the war in Afghanistan. Democrats’ support for the war is at 23%. Why is the Democrat who got elected as president not following his base, but instead obeying the wishes of Republicans who support this war at 62%?
If McCain had been elected, it would have been fair for him to say that he is in Afghanistan, because that’s what his base wants. What’s Obama’s excuse?
That still wouldn’t make our presence in Afghanistan legal, but McCain could at least claim that he’s following democratic principles for deciding whether or not to stay in Afghanistan.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday morning indicates that 39 percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan, with 58 percent opposed to the mission.
Support is down from 53 percent in April, marking the lowest level since the start of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The poll suggests that 23 percent of Democrats support the war. That number rises to 39 percent for independents and 62 percent for Republicans.
“Most of the recent erosion in support has come from within the GOP,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director. “Unlike Democrats and independents, Republicans still favor the war, but their support has slipped eight points in just two weeks.”
Through a tweet by Alison Kilkenny I was led to an op-ed piece written by Joseph Galloway (who is not, by the way, George Galloway). The title of the piece is “Afghanistan isn’t worth one more American life“. At first this would seem to be an anti-war statement, but only if we ignore the fact that other people besides Americans are involved. Right away Galloway is establishing worthy victims and unworthy victims. No mention of the death of Afghanis.
Next Galloway suggests that we should revisit the “Powell Doctrine” which consists of 8 questions that “must be answered with a loud YES before the United States takes military action.” Here are the questions:
1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear, attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all non-violent policy means been exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have all the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have broad international support?
There is an important omission from the list: “Is invading another country legal?” Answer: NO. If one were to properly place this question at the top of the list it would quickly become apparent that the rest of the questions are irrelevant.
It has become the norm to forget about how we got into Afghanistan in the first place and ignore the fact that we had no right to invade that country. Instead the focus becomes, on both the left and right, the lives of US military personnel. Conservative hypocrite columnist George Will’s column “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan” is a perfect example of this. It was celebrated by the left as some sort of victory where the conservatives are finally coming around, but if you read the whole column like FAIR did, you’ll notice the next to last paragraph which they drew attention to during their latest Counterspin episode (at the 8:30 mark):
So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.
Again, driving the point home of who are worthy victims and who are not. We should not be put in harm’s way. We should kill from a distance. We should invoke terrorism in a country, when we are supposedly fighting this sort of criminal activity in the guise of a war on an idea.
Of course, there’s a more fundamental reason to not be in Afghanistan other than “our guys” are getting killed. And that is that it is against international law. About a year ago Marjorie Cohn wrote a piece for Alternet.org titled “Afghanistan: The Other Illegal War“ that reminds us of this fact and includes the details of why this is so:
The U.N. Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan. Resolutions 1368 and 1373 condemned the Sept. 11 attacks and ordered the freezing of assets; the criminalizing of terrorist activity; the prevention of the commission of and support for terrorist attacks; and the taking of necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist activity, including the sharing of information. In addition, it urged ratification and enforcement of the international conventions against terrorism.
The invasion of Afghanistan was not legitimate self-defense under article 51 of the charter because the attacks on Sept. 11 were criminal attacks, not “armed attacks” by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after Sept. 11, or Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the U.N. General Assembly.
Bush’s justification for attacking Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training terrorists. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and he was given safe haven in the United States. The people in Latin American countries whose dictators were trained in torture techniques at the School of the Americas could likewise have attacked the torture training facility in Fort Benning, Ga., under that specious rationale. Those who conspired to hijack airplanes and kill thousands of people on 9/11 are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be identified and brought to justice in accordance with the law. But retaliation by invading Afghanistan is not the answer and will only lead to the deaths of more of our troops and Afghans.
Maybe we should rethink Afghanistan, which you can do at rethinkafghanistan.com.
If you watch the videos there, you’ll go: Oh yeah, there’s real people over there getting killed who have no idea why some jackass sitting in an underground office in Virginia keeps blowing them up via remote control. These guys must be like rednecks that run down animals with their trucks and put m80s in fish and frogs. Now they have model airplanes with guns that we paid for. Can you imagine paying for the gun that some idiot uses to kill innocent people? That’s what paying for the Afghanistan war is. Now shut up and get back to work.
This Brave New Films production is a good antidote to the infotainers and blowhards who have nothing at stake there, who think that arguing about war is a pastime and hobby, like running down deer with their truck.
A majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting and just a quarter say more U.S. troops should be sent to the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Majority in Post-ABC Poll Say Afghan War Not Worth Fighting, Washington Post, 8/19/09
As Glenn Greenwald points out (and as these last two entries show), that’s the 2nd straight poll that shows Americans want our military out of Afghanistan.
Why are we there? If you use the word “necessity” anywhere in your answer a piano will fall from the heavens and crush you where you stand.
I also heard a caller on a radio show the other day state that “Afghanistan attacked us.” No, Afghanistan did not attack us. Supposedly a group within Afghanistan, comparable to the goofy militias in this country, somehow cobbled together a plan to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings. Afghanistan the country did not attack us. So, don’t bother with that answer either.
And, you still didn’t answer my other question. If we stay in Afghanistan does that mean we don’t live in a democracy? How about if we don’t put single-payer health care into law or at least include a public option in health care reform even though they are favored by the majority of the population?
If we live in a Democracy, what are we doing with our military in Afghanistan? 54% of the US population doesn’t want our military there.
