Afghanistan March 1st 2017

There are two globe-trotting leftist 'internationalists' whose reports are always worth a read, Pepe Escobar and Andre Vltchek. Escobar is a Brazilian and heir to the anti-imperialist traditions of South America, Vltchek is a Russian who still believes in socialism. Sending a Russian who still believes in socialism into the nightmare landscape of modern Afghanistan is as heart-breaking as it gets.

You have to turn away from Afghanistan. If you keep in contact with it you will go insane with grief. Even from my safely abstracted study of the country, I had to turn away. Like my study of Vietnam and Laos, I was never quite the same afterwards. Yet I keep coming back to those countries too. 

 Afghanistan-notes-from-a-broken-land/

Andre Vltchek wrote:Again, as so many times before, you are scared. You were scared like this several times before: in Haiti, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, Iraq, and Peru, to name just a few countries. In those places, as well as here in Kabul, you are not frightened because you could easily lose your life any moment, or because your safety might be in danger. What dismays you, what you really cannot stomach, are the images of despair, those of ‘no way out’, of absolute hopelessness. Lack of hope is killing you, it horrifies you; everything else can always be dealt with.

People you see all around can hardly stand on their feet. Many cannot stand at all. Most of them are stoned, laying around in rags, sitting in embryonic positions, or moving aimlessly back and forth, staring emptily into the distance. Some are urinating publicly. Syringes are everywhere.

There are holes, deep and wide, filled with motionless human bodies.

First you drive around, photographing through the cracked glass, then you roll down the window, and at the end, you get out and begin working, totally exposed. You have no idea what may happen in the next few seconds. Someone begins shouting at you, others are throwing stones, but they are too weak and the stones just hit your shoulder and legs, softly, without causing any harm.

Then a bomb goes off, not far from where you are. There is an explosion in the 6th District, right in front of a police station. You cannot see it, but you can clearly hear the blast. It is a muffled yet powerful bang. You look at your phone.

Read it. Unfortunately, if you are not already knowledgeable about Afghanistan you won't get some of the details and when Vtlchek leaves Afghanistan he expresses an optimism that seems too forced. It is the forced optimism of someone who has to believe things will get better because the hopelessness is in the midst of is lethal is the body and soul.

Jan 2013

August 24th 2017

Trump announced the sending of more soldiers to occupy Afghanistan. No plan, no stated goal, no details - nothing that could be used for rational debate or accountability - just a statement that 'the generals' will be given another 4 years to kill Afghans 'without restraint'.

Trump wrote:I am here tonight to lay out our path forward in Afghanistan and South Asia.

I have already lifted restrictions the previous administration placed on our war fighters that prevented the secretary of defense and our commanders in the field from fully and swiftly waging battle against the enemy.

That’s why we will also expand authority for American armed forces to target the terrorists and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan. These killers need to know they have nowhere to hide, that no place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms. Retribution will be fast and powerful, as we lift restrictions and expand authorities in the field.

We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out.

Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win.

Terrorists who slaughter innocent people are nothing but thugs and criminals and predators and — that’s right — losers.

I’m a problem solver. And in the end, we will win.

Because the biggest problem according to an endless stream of American reactionaries is that the US is too restrained in its' killing, no more worrying about trying to minimize civilian deaths... The estimates are that 200,000 Afghan civilians have been killed since 2001.  That is a conservative guess. The US has refused to give out their figures on this topic since the beginning of their occupation.

counterpunch.org wrote:Nixon publicly insisted that the United States was careful to avoid killing innocent people. In private, Nixon had no qualms. In a 1972 conversation captured by his White House taping system, Nixon told Henry Kissinger, “The only place where you and I disagree … is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.”

Later Kissinger boasted, “Once we’ve broken the war in Vietnam … then no one will give a damn about war crimes.”

Another 4 years of fat war-profiteering - that's the main purpose of the Afghan war (In 2009 Obama had 70,000 American troops, 30,000 European troops and 100,000 private contractors in Afghanistan. Since 2001, $100 billion has been 'spent' on Afghanistan.) It's also a endless battleground to 'blood' new troops by allowing them to kill farmers and peasants and maybe do some weapon-testing. It also serves as a possible launching spot for a strike on Iran. If you think the war is about helping little girls go to school, you're a liberal dupe.

Trump also signaled a pivot to favouring India over Pakistan as the favored partner in the region. During the 80s the Soviets and US had a proxy war in Afghanistan (Government v. Islamic Terrorist), in the 1990s it was India and Pakistan having the proxy war there (Northern Alliance v. Taliban).

It took Trump a few months to decide this, Clinton might have dithered less. That's the only difference between Trump and Clinton. No matter which head of DEMOGORGON you voted for, you could not vote to stop killing Afghans.

In 2011 a mere 6% of Americans wanted more US troops sent to Afghanistan. They stopped doing opinion polls about Afghanistan around that time.

A majority of the population in all the NATO countries occupying Afghanistan wanted their troops withdrawn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_on_the_war_in_Afghanistan

Maybe if the Afghans get with the program they can enjoy the same democracy we have in the Western nations where the legitimacy of the government is based on it's representation of the people's wishes....