July 28, 2006
DELUSIONAL EXPECTATIONS
At this writing, Israel has killed six hundred civilians in Lebanon, including more than one hundred children, and killed another one hundred and fifty in Gaza. It has created hundreds of thousands of refugees and destroyed enough bridges and power stations and apartments to create misery for years to come.
Nothing is more dishonest than attempting to justify this barbarism with "Islamist fundamentalists declare their goal openly to destroy the state of Israel and kill Jews."
There is no possibility that Israel can be destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists: the notion is simply a fantasy. This is so not just because of Israel's ready willingness to bomb and kill, but because of great-power guarantees. It is so also because no Arab state believes any longer that Israel’s destruction is a sensible or possible goal, despite their leaders’ public rhetoric. And it is true because the enemies Israel claims are so threatening, organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas, are militarily weak by any rational standard of calculation.
Israel began by moving into a bad neighborhood, and everyone involved understood this from the beginning, yet Israel behaves as though it should be normal to enjoy a pristine Disney-like suburb with white-picket fences. It reacts to activities in the bad neighborhood that disturb its fantasy with ferocious indignation. Israel's destructive behavior is explained largely by this delusional expectation.
If Israel had spent half the resources it has spent on war over the last fifty years instead on helping its neighbors and building up their economies, the region would be a far better place today. And if Israel had been willing to make reasonable concessions to the needs of others in the region, there might well be lasting peace today.
The irony of Israel’s current destructive behavior is that a healthy, prosperous Lebanon is in Israel’s long-term interest, just as it is in Israel’s interest to have all of its neighbors prosperous and flourishing.
But, instead, Israel’s response to any provocation from any gang or individual is always war and maintaining "the iron wall" - an early Zionist phrase that has provided the foundation of Israeli policy for over half a century - against all outsiders with disregard for their interests or needs.
Deception is an important tool in any war, and Israel’s extensive use of it shows us how it regards neighbors and others it should have cultivated as friends. Look at the bombing of a UN observation post in Lebanon, killing four unarmed UN workers. Israel says it was an accident, but the post had been there for years, and it was well marked. Moreover, the UN workers were killed in a bunker, meaning that a certain kind of munition had to be used to kill them. According to a BBC report, the UN peacekeepers had contacted Israeli forces ten times about artillery shelling in the hours before they were hit by a precision-guided missile. How possibly can this have been an accident?
Could the failed international conference in Rome where proposals for an immediate cease-fire and an international force in Southern Lebanon were advocated have provided Israel’s motive? The cease-fire proposal was quickly killed by the United States to give Israel more bombing time. Was the proposal for an international force the target of Israel’s attack? Who would commit observers or troops if this is what would happen to them? We know Israel does not want outside interference in Lebanon. More broadly, Israel has shown intense hostility towards the UN for years, perhaps one of its closest bonds with Bush’s mob.
There is some evidence that the Israeli soldiers kidnapped at the beginning of the current bombardment were actually kidnapped inside Lebanon on a provocative mission. I have no idea whether this true, but it is far from improbable. The kidnapping has certainly provided an excuse for bombing the hell out of southern Lebanon.
Israel’s many past deceptions naturally enough leave one uncomfortable about any of its official statements on any important matter. First was the covert creation of a nuclear arsenal, a fact not acknowledged to this day. Then there was Israel’s secret assistance to apartheid South Africa, including still-unacknowledged assistance in creating and testing a nuclear weapon. There was Israel’s manipulation of events leading to the Six Day War, a war Israel knew it could handily win for great gains (see my March, 2003, article, Was Einstein Right? ). There was Israel’s attempt to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American spy ship, during the Six Day War, an event never meaningfully explained but likely intended to prevent evidence of atrocities against captured Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai being recorded. A large group of Israeli spies was arrested after 9/11, but their extensive activities in the United States leading up to that event have never been explained. Only a few weeks ago, before its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Israel mounted an effort claiming the munition which wiped out a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach belonged to someone else, when in fact a collected scrap of casing clearly showed its American origin, a type of munition not made available to anyone else in the region.
All gangs and individuals who rudely remind Israel that it really does live in a bad neighborhood are simply flattened, but flattening the perpetrators is never enough. Always Israel takes the lives of innocents and destroys their property, believing that such ruthlessness eventually will intimidate everyone around into a zombie-like peace, but this is simply another delusion.
The logic of Israel’s behavior taken to its limit would have a two- or three-hundred mile perimeter around Israel’s border (whatever that is) bulldozed and paved over. This would certainly provide complete security, but it is utter fantasy, just as impossible as the destruction of Israel.
What is the solution in the Middle East? It is found in so simple an act as Israel’s dealing fairly with its neighbors and negotiating to sort things out. Israel has never yet done this. It presents only an iron wall, bristling with weapons. When breakthroughs do come, as with the Oslo Accords, Israel’s establishment quietly ignores them or works actively against them while still talking about peace.
Israel has all the advantages. It has advanced weapons. It has great-power guarantees. It has billions of dollars in assistance every year. It has unmatched access to American intelligence and government. By comparison, Hamas and Hezbollah are pretty anemic forces.
Organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas owe their very existence to Israel's past behavior. Hezbollah flourished as a guerrilla force opposing Israel's previous invasion of Lebanon and its long-term partial occupation. It served also as an important charity in the midst of chaos. Hamas was created with the deliberate help of Israeli intelligence, intending to create a rival for the PLO and introduce instability into Palestinian politics. When Hamas was elected recently as part of the government of Palestine, it was only after innumerable excuses from Israel for not meeting with Abbas and after imprisoning and threatening Arafat for several years before his death. How are Palestinians to deal with an Israel that always has an excuse for not negotiating, for not even speaking, to its government? Israel has now kidnapped the cabinet of an elected government, but this is quietly supported by Bush’s democracy-loving mob.
Israel wants us to accept the simplistic assertion that organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas are proof of Islamist determination to destroy Israel. So long as this is the accepted view, greatly over-simplifying a truly complex situation, there can be no understanding and no sensible approach to peace. Refusing even to talk with the democratically-elected Hamas government and cutting it off from all connections and revenues was an act of war in response to party slogans. You can't build peace on fantasy.
I said Israel could not be destroyed by anyone, but there is an important exception to that statement: Israel could well be destroyed by itself.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
WHEN TERROR IS JUST FINE
July 18, 2006
WHEN TERROR IS JUST FINE
Following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans in 1942, Hitler’s government executed all the men in the village of Lidice, sent its women and children to concentration camps, and razed the village to the ground. A few weeks later, the barbarism was repeated on the village of Lezaky.
Lidice was far from being the worst atrocity of the war, but it rightly came to symbolize heartless oppression by occupiers, what we sometimes today call state terror.
I cannot think of another historical example which better parallels Israel’s savage behavior in Lebanon. Two of its soldiers are kidnapped, and Israel quickly destroys much of the infrastructure of Lebanon, cuts the country off from the world, and kills, at this writing, two hundred civilians.
Already forgotten in the press is Israel’s behavior leading up to events in Lebanon. Israel had blown up an entire family on a Gaza beach and carried out a number of other killings and assassinations. It killed about twenty innocent people in a week or so. The pitiful efforts of people in Gaza to respond to the outrages were met by more killing and a partial invasion. Most of the cabinet of Palestine was kidnapped, and the elected Prime Minister was openly threatened with assassination.
We might try a thought experiment to bring a contemporary perspective to Israel’s behavior. Suppose we take the view of Hezbollah as a vicious, well-armed street gang in a city like Chicago, rather than a guerrilla movement in a country previously invaded by Israel. This is in fact something close to Israel’s view of Hezbollah.
Now, suppose the Chicago gang kidnapped a couple of policemen and tried to ransom some of its members out of prison. This would cause a huge response, but would that response include the Illinois National Guard bombing the city’s black ghetto areas, indiscriminately killing hundreds, destroying homes and businesses, and imprisoning tens of thousands by not allowing normal contact with the city? Would the government say it is up to the people of the ghetto to get rid of the gang?
To ask the question is to have the answer. Such ruthlessness would bring immediate, overwhelming, world-wide condemnation.
Then, we must ask why Israel isn’t condemned in the same fashion? Actually, it is condemned by much of the world, but it is praised and supported by Bush and most of the powerful, war-loving American press.
No, instead of condemnation, we get Orwellian stuff about Israel’s "measured" or "appropriate" response, as though anything short of carpet-bombing or nuclear weapons qualifies as "measured," and about a second front opening up, as though Israel were bravely fighting a war, but there is no war, only Israel’s savage retribution against two states with groups it hates.
Somehow Israel expects a weak state like Lebanon to take on Hezbollah and eliminate it. Yet Israel is too fearful itself of casualties to take on this gang directly. It would rather bomb and threaten others into attempting it, something that if even attempted would tip Lebanon into civil war once again.
Of course, Israel’s view of civil wars in other countries is rather different than the view of those who must suffer through them. Violence weakens and effectively neutralizes them, just as the American-induced anarchy in Iraq effectively sweeps an old foe away for years to come.
WHEN TERROR IS JUST FINE
Following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans in 1942, Hitler’s government executed all the men in the village of Lidice, sent its women and children to concentration camps, and razed the village to the ground. A few weeks later, the barbarism was repeated on the village of Lezaky.
Lidice was far from being the worst atrocity of the war, but it rightly came to symbolize heartless oppression by occupiers, what we sometimes today call state terror.
I cannot think of another historical example which better parallels Israel’s savage behavior in Lebanon. Two of its soldiers are kidnapped, and Israel quickly destroys much of the infrastructure of Lebanon, cuts the country off from the world, and kills, at this writing, two hundred civilians.
Already forgotten in the press is Israel’s behavior leading up to events in Lebanon. Israel had blown up an entire family on a Gaza beach and carried out a number of other killings and assassinations. It killed about twenty innocent people in a week or so. The pitiful efforts of people in Gaza to respond to the outrages were met by more killing and a partial invasion. Most of the cabinet of Palestine was kidnapped, and the elected Prime Minister was openly threatened with assassination.
We might try a thought experiment to bring a contemporary perspective to Israel’s behavior. Suppose we take the view of Hezbollah as a vicious, well-armed street gang in a city like Chicago, rather than a guerrilla movement in a country previously invaded by Israel. This is in fact something close to Israel’s view of Hezbollah.
Now, suppose the Chicago gang kidnapped a couple of policemen and tried to ransom some of its members out of prison. This would cause a huge response, but would that response include the Illinois National Guard bombing the city’s black ghetto areas, indiscriminately killing hundreds, destroying homes and businesses, and imprisoning tens of thousands by not allowing normal contact with the city? Would the government say it is up to the people of the ghetto to get rid of the gang?
To ask the question is to have the answer. Such ruthlessness would bring immediate, overwhelming, world-wide condemnation.
Then, we must ask why Israel isn’t condemned in the same fashion? Actually, it is condemned by much of the world, but it is praised and supported by Bush and most of the powerful, war-loving American press.
No, instead of condemnation, we get Orwellian stuff about Israel’s "measured" or "appropriate" response, as though anything short of carpet-bombing or nuclear weapons qualifies as "measured," and about a second front opening up, as though Israel were bravely fighting a war, but there is no war, only Israel’s savage retribution against two states with groups it hates.
Somehow Israel expects a weak state like Lebanon to take on Hezbollah and eliminate it. Yet Israel is too fearful itself of casualties to take on this gang directly. It would rather bomb and threaten others into attempting it, something that if even attempted would tip Lebanon into civil war once again.
Of course, Israel’s view of civil wars in other countries is rather different than the view of those who must suffer through them. Violence weakens and effectively neutralizes them, just as the American-induced anarchy in Iraq effectively sweeps an old foe away for years to come.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
AFGHANISTAN IS NO ONE'S WAR
July 7, 2006
AFGHANISTAN IS NO ONE'S WAR
A summary of events leading to the invasion of Afghanistan is helpful.
Following 9/11, the Taleban government said it would extradite Osama bin Laden if the U.S. could produce evidence against him. This is the approach taken by the courts of every Western country when extradition is requested.
The U.S. either could not or would not produce any evidence, yet it insisted the Taleban was behaving in bad faith and harboring criminals.
To this day, the public has not been given one genuine piece of evidence that ties bin Laden to 9/11. I’m not saying he’s innocent, only that there was no proof at the time Bush used him as an excuse to invade Afghanistan.
Bin Laden certainly did not like the United States, but was he in any way responsible for a great crime? How would his apparent happiness with events distinguish him from the group of Israeli spies in the New York area who were photographed, reported to police, and arrested (later being quietly deported) after dancing and shouting atop a truck as the World Trade Center billowed into flames? To this day, the FBI wanted-notice for bin Laden does not mention 9/11.
I am sure that with a real campaign of pressure - diplomatic, legal, and economic - America could have secured bin Laden's extradition. Bush’s government didn't really try. Invasion was an attractive option for many reasons. These include satisfying the bellowing, belly-over-the-belt types that are Bush’s natural constituency, doing something for Bush’s missing leadership credentials, gaining new influence over a nuclear and uncooperative Pakistan, building a long-planned trans-Afghanistan pipeline, and, importantly, preparing the way for an invasion of Iraq, something discussed and advocated for years before in Bush’s Neo-con crowd.
Afghanistan is an ancient, backward civilization with an average life expectancy of 45 years. Those who really know a lot about the country tended to say from the beginning that it was unrealistic for the U.S. to expect to make meaningful change there. This interpretation agrees with generally accepted principles of economic development, in particular the principle that social and political changes only come gradually with steady economic growth. One is tempted to say that the U.S. could have brought more genuine, positive change in Afghanistan and Iraq by dropping planeloads of dollar bills rather than bombs.
Although American military destruction in Afghanistan appears to have been less than in Iraq, this largely reflects the fact that there was little infrastructure in Afghanistan to start with, especially when compared with what existed in Iraq, once the Arab world’s most advanced country. Still, relative terms are what count here, and destruction in Afghanistan was considerable. Now that the financial costs of the two wars and the instability and risk of the occupations have proved much greater than anticipated, Bush is not able to execute even rushed, poorly-made plans for reconstruction. This is not a formula for long-term success even if you are a Neo-con visionary.
Making change there - beyond getting rid of bin Laden and the boys and removing the Taleban government - was never the American purpose, although it features heavily in all propaganda supporting the invasion as though it were a central purpose.
Canada’s Conservative government today plays a cover version of the same tired song, hyping a military mission supporting American withdrawal from its fiasco as a noble nation-building project. Canada’s Prime Minister Harper – whom Bush affectionately now calls "Steve" - tries to distort the simple freakish fact that 30 Canadians died in the World Trade Center into a grandiose argument for spending billions on a delusional War on Terror. More Canadians than that die every month in traffic accidents on roads in the United States.
The U.S.-placed government in Kabul has a sensible and reasonable man as President, however he has almost no power, nor is there the prospect of his gaining any. The U.S. would have to re-conquer the country - a huge, ugly, and perhaps impossible job against the warlords who helped them the first time - if it really wanted to change things. The warlords who made a cheap American victory possible are the very reason the President can have no real power over the country, a vicious cycle if there ever was one.
But it is a misnomer to refer to an American victory, even a cheap one. In ancient lands, things, including guerrilla wars, move at a pace not understood by those blackberrying around Washington making presentations from notebook computers. Dispersing the Taleban so that the Northern Alliance could rule for a while is hardly victory. America and its allies now are trapped in an impossible situation. Other than wishing all opposition somehow would disappear, it is not even clear now what would constitute victory.
British commanders have told Blair recently that hostile activity in the area of the country they occupy has so increased that they cannot succeed without more troops and equipment. That comes as very unwelcome news to Blair whose popularity in Britain is even lower than Bush’s in America. More troops, more coffins, more money.
Jason Burke, a journalist with considerable knowledge of Afghanistan, wrote the following as part of a column in The Observer. It offers, in an off-hand, matter-of-fact way several realities of Afghanistan and the Taleban generally not appreciated in North America.
Walk out of the gates, past the bored British soldiers in their guardhouse, past the Afghan troops on the outer wall, past razor wire and take the dusty path through the ramshackle cemetery. Go past a new, whitewashed villa built for a local 'businessman' and on through the labyrinth of narrow alleys and traditional mud-walled homes and then turn left through a passage way and there you will find the scruffy bazaar of Lashkar Gah and the Taliban.
Two men, both bearded and wearing the trademark thick-coiled black turban, were sitting in the shade behind a friend's workshop. They had agreed to talk to The Observer. 'I am proud to be a Talib,' said Fazl Rahman, 40. 'Why should I deny it? Why should I be afraid?'
'The foreigners are here for their own reasons,' said his younger comrade. 'If they were here to help us, everyone would be living better. But look.' He pointed to the dirt street outside, the shacks, the sagging electricity cables, the thin trees that provide scant protection from the heat of the early afternoon sun and then waved his hand towards the camp a few hundred metres away, the longest-established British base in Helmand province. 'All foreigners are our enemy,' he says. 'You are a journalist, so we don't harm you. But if you were a soldier we would kill you. Afghanistan is the castle of Islam and the foreigners are destroying our religion.'
The Taleban, in other words, are easily found even near a British military base. They include the most ordinary-looking men. The American effort at building-up the country, if it ever was serious, is a failure.
Burke’s report suggests the Taleban cause strongly appeals to feelings against foreign occupation and in defense of religion. What Americans do not understand is that the Taleban is not a fixed organization but a fluid alliance of interests. The fierce mountain men of Afghanistan move back and forth between one alliance and another, depending on changing needs and advantages. The sad state of American achievement was demonstrated by recent bragging headlines about one old, crippled warrior chief changing sides, leaving the Taleban. Afghanistan is the land of ferocious (male) libertarianism if ever there was one, something you might think Americans, with all their rhetoric about freedom to bear arms against tyranny, would understand.
How can anyone influence the new explosion of drugs from Afghanistan? The economy is a shambles, and poor farmers can only make a living with poppies. Any aggressive effort to end the crop simply creates new opposition to the existing government. Anyway, there is no effective central government to undertake this task. Even in Kabul the government’s authority remains weak. The government’s allies, the warlords, profit from poppies.
The technology and know-how of guerrilla fighting steadily improves in Afghanistan. Of course, it has always been so with guerrilla operations, the IRA, for example, having increased the deadliness of its efforts dramatically over the years. Iraq's huge guerrilla movement is becoming adept at creating new devices and tactics, exporting them to Afghanistan, and an angry Iran is there to offer lots of help and encouragement. The U.S. knows this. That's why it won't stay for a great deal longer in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, the American commander has referred already to plans for some withdrawal of troops despite being in the midst of murderous storm.
There is no reason to feel hopeful or idealistic about anyone’s role in Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq are neither wars in the traditional sense nor humanitarian projects. They are foreign occupations of people who do not want to be occupied. The idea that you can successfully occupy a hostile land into peace remains a delusion of consultants on big expense accounts in Washington. Just ask Israel nearly four decades after the Six Day War.
AFGHANISTAN IS NO ONE'S WAR
A summary of events leading to the invasion of Afghanistan is helpful.
Following 9/11, the Taleban government said it would extradite Osama bin Laden if the U.S. could produce evidence against him. This is the approach taken by the courts of every Western country when extradition is requested.
The U.S. either could not or would not produce any evidence, yet it insisted the Taleban was behaving in bad faith and harboring criminals.
To this day, the public has not been given one genuine piece of evidence that ties bin Laden to 9/11. I’m not saying he’s innocent, only that there was no proof at the time Bush used him as an excuse to invade Afghanistan.
Bin Laden certainly did not like the United States, but was he in any way responsible for a great crime? How would his apparent happiness with events distinguish him from the group of Israeli spies in the New York area who were photographed, reported to police, and arrested (later being quietly deported) after dancing and shouting atop a truck as the World Trade Center billowed into flames? To this day, the FBI wanted-notice for bin Laden does not mention 9/11.
I am sure that with a real campaign of pressure - diplomatic, legal, and economic - America could have secured bin Laden's extradition. Bush’s government didn't really try. Invasion was an attractive option for many reasons. These include satisfying the bellowing, belly-over-the-belt types that are Bush’s natural constituency, doing something for Bush’s missing leadership credentials, gaining new influence over a nuclear and uncooperative Pakistan, building a long-planned trans-Afghanistan pipeline, and, importantly, preparing the way for an invasion of Iraq, something discussed and advocated for years before in Bush’s Neo-con crowd.
Afghanistan is an ancient, backward civilization with an average life expectancy of 45 years. Those who really know a lot about the country tended to say from the beginning that it was unrealistic for the U.S. to expect to make meaningful change there. This interpretation agrees with generally accepted principles of economic development, in particular the principle that social and political changes only come gradually with steady economic growth. One is tempted to say that the U.S. could have brought more genuine, positive change in Afghanistan and Iraq by dropping planeloads of dollar bills rather than bombs.
Although American military destruction in Afghanistan appears to have been less than in Iraq, this largely reflects the fact that there was little infrastructure in Afghanistan to start with, especially when compared with what existed in Iraq, once the Arab world’s most advanced country. Still, relative terms are what count here, and destruction in Afghanistan was considerable. Now that the financial costs of the two wars and the instability and risk of the occupations have proved much greater than anticipated, Bush is not able to execute even rushed, poorly-made plans for reconstruction. This is not a formula for long-term success even if you are a Neo-con visionary.
Making change there - beyond getting rid of bin Laden and the boys and removing the Taleban government - was never the American purpose, although it features heavily in all propaganda supporting the invasion as though it were a central purpose.
Canada’s Conservative government today plays a cover version of the same tired song, hyping a military mission supporting American withdrawal from its fiasco as a noble nation-building project. Canada’s Prime Minister Harper – whom Bush affectionately now calls "Steve" - tries to distort the simple freakish fact that 30 Canadians died in the World Trade Center into a grandiose argument for spending billions on a delusional War on Terror. More Canadians than that die every month in traffic accidents on roads in the United States.
The U.S.-placed government in Kabul has a sensible and reasonable man as President, however he has almost no power, nor is there the prospect of his gaining any. The U.S. would have to re-conquer the country - a huge, ugly, and perhaps impossible job against the warlords who helped them the first time - if it really wanted to change things. The warlords who made a cheap American victory possible are the very reason the President can have no real power over the country, a vicious cycle if there ever was one.
But it is a misnomer to refer to an American victory, even a cheap one. In ancient lands, things, including guerrilla wars, move at a pace not understood by those blackberrying around Washington making presentations from notebook computers. Dispersing the Taleban so that the Northern Alliance could rule for a while is hardly victory. America and its allies now are trapped in an impossible situation. Other than wishing all opposition somehow would disappear, it is not even clear now what would constitute victory.
British commanders have told Blair recently that hostile activity in the area of the country they occupy has so increased that they cannot succeed without more troops and equipment. That comes as very unwelcome news to Blair whose popularity in Britain is even lower than Bush’s in America. More troops, more coffins, more money.
Jason Burke, a journalist with considerable knowledge of Afghanistan, wrote the following as part of a column in The Observer. It offers, in an off-hand, matter-of-fact way several realities of Afghanistan and the Taleban generally not appreciated in North America.
Walk out of the gates, past the bored British soldiers in their guardhouse, past the Afghan troops on the outer wall, past razor wire and take the dusty path through the ramshackle cemetery. Go past a new, whitewashed villa built for a local 'businessman' and on through the labyrinth of narrow alleys and traditional mud-walled homes and then turn left through a passage way and there you will find the scruffy bazaar of Lashkar Gah and the Taliban.
Two men, both bearded and wearing the trademark thick-coiled black turban, were sitting in the shade behind a friend's workshop. They had agreed to talk to The Observer. 'I am proud to be a Talib,' said Fazl Rahman, 40. 'Why should I deny it? Why should I be afraid?'
'The foreigners are here for their own reasons,' said his younger comrade. 'If they were here to help us, everyone would be living better. But look.' He pointed to the dirt street outside, the shacks, the sagging electricity cables, the thin trees that provide scant protection from the heat of the early afternoon sun and then waved his hand towards the camp a few hundred metres away, the longest-established British base in Helmand province. 'All foreigners are our enemy,' he says. 'You are a journalist, so we don't harm you. But if you were a soldier we would kill you. Afghanistan is the castle of Islam and the foreigners are destroying our religion.'
The Taleban, in other words, are easily found even near a British military base. They include the most ordinary-looking men. The American effort at building-up the country, if it ever was serious, is a failure.
Burke’s report suggests the Taleban cause strongly appeals to feelings against foreign occupation and in defense of religion. What Americans do not understand is that the Taleban is not a fixed organization but a fluid alliance of interests. The fierce mountain men of Afghanistan move back and forth between one alliance and another, depending on changing needs and advantages. The sad state of American achievement was demonstrated by recent bragging headlines about one old, crippled warrior chief changing sides, leaving the Taleban. Afghanistan is the land of ferocious (male) libertarianism if ever there was one, something you might think Americans, with all their rhetoric about freedom to bear arms against tyranny, would understand.
How can anyone influence the new explosion of drugs from Afghanistan? The economy is a shambles, and poor farmers can only make a living with poppies. Any aggressive effort to end the crop simply creates new opposition to the existing government. Anyway, there is no effective central government to undertake this task. Even in Kabul the government’s authority remains weak. The government’s allies, the warlords, profit from poppies.
The technology and know-how of guerrilla fighting steadily improves in Afghanistan. Of course, it has always been so with guerrilla operations, the IRA, for example, having increased the deadliness of its efforts dramatically over the years. Iraq's huge guerrilla movement is becoming adept at creating new devices and tactics, exporting them to Afghanistan, and an angry Iran is there to offer lots of help and encouragement. The U.S. knows this. That's why it won't stay for a great deal longer in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, the American commander has referred already to plans for some withdrawal of troops despite being in the midst of murderous storm.
There is no reason to feel hopeful or idealistic about anyone’s role in Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq are neither wars in the traditional sense nor humanitarian projects. They are foreign occupations of people who do not want to be occupied. The idea that you can successfully occupy a hostile land into peace remains a delusion of consultants on big expense accounts in Washington. Just ask Israel nearly four decades after the Six Day War.
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