SERIES OF POSTED RESONSES TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"The road to Afghan victory runs through Pakistan."
I am sorry, Jeffrey Simpson, to see you give any recognition to this ugly business.
The US had no business in Afghanistan in the first place – no Afghan attacked them, and Americans never even tried to offer evidence of complicity in 9/11 for purposes of extradition. Britain joined in the insane crusade, we know, because they truly feared the US was close to using nuclear weapons.
Now to "win" the US is exporting its pointless, destructive war to still another country.
The parallel with Vietnam and Cambodia is genuine and frightening. The US bears major responsibility for the Cambodian Killing Fields by its weakening of a neutral government through secret bombing and incursions. It is always demanding “cooperation” from people not involved or interested in its bloody adventures.
Few people realize that the border to which you and American officials refer is no border at all. The Durand Line is a relic of British imperialism, and it was never even properly finalized.
The Pashtun – the major pool of Taleban recruits – live on both sides of the Line as though it did not exist, which indeed for them is the case. It's like talking about the border between Quebec and Eastern Ontario.
Musharraf, for all his faults, kept at bay the US effort to spread its war into Pakistan, but they managed to get him out through manipulations, bribes, and black ops. He was a dictator but an honorable one with the best interests of his country in mind.
Now they have a somewhat cooperative government from the US point of view. All you have to do is ask what that means in terms of Pakistan’s own interests and understanding of interests. It goes precisely against them.
The US assassinates groups of people – often complete innocents – every week with drones and Hellfire missiles.
Now they’ve pushed the Pakistani army to fight its own people. They are killing their own people and creating tens of thousands of refugees fleeing their homes on behalf of the views of lard-ass bureaucrats in Washington sitting in leather chairs, gazing out at the Potomac.
Of course, Canada’s involvement is no different in kind, just in extent. We are there because we owed one to the Pentagon. How very meaningful.
Gee, I wonder how long it will be before Washington equips the drones they’ve started flying along our border with Hellfire missiles? After all, major officials in Washington, including the last Republican presidential candidate, still blubber paranoid nonsense about the 9/11 bunch having come through Canada.
And just think of the government we will have to stand for our interests: Harper, a man who just cannot grovel enough to American interests, or Ignatieff, an adopted American, who may well even be a CIA mole.
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The Taleban did NOT refuse to hand over people after 9/11.
To say that is plainly ignorant.
The US requested extradition of certain people, and the government of Afghanistan, then the Taleban, asked for some evidence to support the request.
The US refused.
Yet that is the standard operating procedure everywhere with extradition treaties: the requesting state must supply some evidence to support the request.
But the US simply refused.
And to this day, we have not been given one shred of genuine evidence that Osama bin Laden did what everyone assumes he did.
Why does everyone assume that?
Because the US government says so, and because the major corporate media have repeated the assertion endlessly.
Again, if you want a world of laws and civility, then you must respect the laws and be civil yourself.
The US seems to believe it is above that principle, and its only excuse is its power.
Might makes right.
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How short memories are.
Clinton not only rained down missiles in Afghanistan killing God knows how many people, he bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, killing a number of people and destroying a valued facility in a poor part of the world.
Absolutely no evidence has ever been given that that plant was anything but what was claimed, a pharmaceutical plant.
Of course, this fact also shows American meddling in Sudan going back a long time.
Any wonder it is a mess there?
