You are hereBlogs / kevinzeese's blog / As 10th Year of Longest War Begins the Flood of Bad News in Afghanistan Continues
As 10th Year of Longest War Begins the Flood of Bad News in Afghanistan Continues
Obama Should End the War or He Will Pay a Heavy Political Price
Today, the 10th year of the Afghanistan War begins.
The longest American war continues amidst a flood of bad news from the war front – supply routes cut, oil tankers burning, record deaths of soldiers and Afghan civilians, U.S. funding the Taliban to protect U.S. troops . . . on and on, the war failure stares the United States in the face.
If Obama thinks he is having a hard time with the “enthusiasm gap” in 2010, in 2012 if these wars continue, he will be unable to wake up his anti-war base no matter how much he chides them and tries to scare them with extremist Republicans.
The counterproductive, unnecessary, and damaging Afghanistan war is destroying one of the most impoverished countries in the world, killing Afghan civilians at very high rates and undermining the United States in multiple ways.
The war pushes the U.S. further into debt. The United States spends $1.5 billion per month in borrowed money on the Afghanistan war.
It undermines the rule of law; the U.S. holds thousands of Afghans in prisons without charges. Torture is reported. And robotic drones result in deaths. Legal experts have described these actions as war crimes.
It undermines democracy by propping up a corrupt leader put in office by a low-voter-turnout elections that are rife with fraud.
And it undermines national security by creating more enemies every day--enemies that will hate the United States for a generation or more.
Now the war is expanding into an Af-Pak war-quagmire. Since coming to office, President Obama escalated attacks in Pakistan with drone after drone killing civilians and local insurgent leaders. Pakistanis are no longer sitting back but are responding by exploding oil tankers and blocking key border routes. Cutting off U.S. supply lines and burning the oil used to keep tanks rolling and planes flying may end up being the nail in a coffin of a war that cannot be won and should not have been fought. Even before these attacks on supply lines, it cost $1 million per year to keep a soldier in Afghanistan. With supply routes cut and oil burning, that cost will escalate quickly.
With the mid-term elections soon to be behind us, the Obama administration is shaping up its re-election strategy. One lesson Obama and the Democrats should have learned in the mid-terms is that they cannot take their base for granted. Every day Obama, Biden, and other administration officials are criticizing their voting base for not coming out for the mid-term elections. Don’t they get it? The Democrats turned off their voting base. Antiwar voters do not support policies that expand wars, create record military spending and result in the largest weapons sales in history.
Anti-war voters were critical to Obama’s election. By the time 2012 comes around if the U.S. is still fighting a war and occupation in Afghanistan anger against the war will be at a very high level. The anti-war vote that got Obama through the Democratic primaries and propelled him to a general election victory will turn against Obama – working for other candidates, funding other candidates and sitting on their hands when it comes to Obama and the Democrats.
Indeed, since 2006 the Democratic base has been saying, "End the wars." The message has been clear with votes in 2006 that gave the Democrats back control of Congress because of the unpopular war policy of Bush and the Republicans. It was clear in the presidential election when Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War and pledge to end the war propelled him through the primaries. And, it is clear in polls today: Americans oppose the Afghanistan War.
Anti-war voters need to make sure that Obama and team get the message from the enthusiasm gap in the midterm elections: the Democrats cannot take the peace vote for granted.
Many of us did not support Obama in the last election because of his proposals to expand war, other anti-war voters supported him with the hope that he would end the wars. Some believed him when he said he would end the Iraq war and end the mindset that got the U.S. into war. Now, those voters are seeing the truth. The Iraq war didn’t end, soldiers and mercenaries fighting combat in Iraq are now merely re-labeled as non-combat soldiers while the war goes on. Peace voters see the Afghanistan war expanding and evolving into a more dangerous Af-Pak War.
The anti-war voting base is turned off to Obama and the Democratic Party. The Democrats must reverse course on war and excite anti-war voters by ending the wars, cutting military spending and denouncing a war-dominated foreign policy. Denouncing us because we oppose war and therefore will not support candidates who expand war is a recipe for defeat in 2012.
But now, as the longest war enters its 10th year, anti-war voters need to make sure President Obama gets the message. Tell him, "If the wars continue, you will not get the peace vote. If the wars continue, there will be no peace activists working for you in the primaries or general election. If the war continues you are acting against a majority of Americans who oppose the wars and recognize they undermine the U.S. economy." Remind him that war is not the answer and it is time for America to come home and focus on the serious domestic problems the country faces. (You can click here to write the president today.)
Peace voters need to realize they have the power because Obama and the Dems need their votes. It is time for us to make clear demands so that as they plan for the next election they understand dramatic policy change is needed or they will be out of office. The peace vote matters.
Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace.
- kevinzeese's blog
- Login to post comments
-
- Email this page
- Printer-friendly version
You can be sure that I will not vote for Obama next time if there are wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. He can forget my vote and my help. Ditto for congress and the others. Note to John Conyers -- don't try to scare me with threats about Republican take over. I have yet to see a change.
It can be agreed that this war is "counterproductive, unnecessary, and damaging", but, and more importantly, the war has always been and will always be illegal and criminal. The planning also was unjustifiable and criminal. It was criminal to plan for this war, which was planned months prior to 9/11. And a number of analysts have also said that the planning for the war actually started much ealier than this; back in the 1990s. Some other people could argue that the full related timeline reaches even further back, decades earlier. (It's a valid view, but a lot of people might not see the actually strong relationship.)
I believe that activists calling this war today unnecessary are surely basing this perception on the "justifications" pronounced by the Bush Jr-Cheney administration after the 9/11 attacks for this war, and these were [lies]. The war never really was for the reasons the Bush administration told to the public. The real reasons were secret and people [need] to recognize this fact. The war has never been necessary, but it's not a war for the reasons Bush Jr claimed and the Bush administration knew they were lying.
And we know that whether or not the war is counterproductive (CP) depends on a person's "interests". It's this, as well as unnecessary and damaging, for by far most people, but isn't for the war-making, continuing, and profiteering elites. The war never really was for fighting against terrorism or for defending U.S. national security. Those were more lies of the White House, et alia. CP for us, while very profitable for the ruling war elites makes it clear that whether the war is CP and unnecessary, or not, depends on which of these groups we're in.
The war is for racket and global dominance; not anti-terrorism and national security. All activists should be able to recognize this fact by now.
The wars have always been illegal and criminal, always will be criminal. We have laws on paper that support this view. So forget about unnecessary and counterproductive. Instead, we need indictments and prosecutions against the war-makers, continuers, and profiteers.
Some voters still supporting the war(s), or who are in doubt about this, might benefit from being told that it's unnecessary and counterproductive, as well as damaging; but I'm not sure that such people can be persuaded with such words. Maybe some of them will be persuadable with such terms, but I think these people or everyone surely has already heard and read these things, so perhaps the only way that the still-unpersuaded can be persuaded is with very hard economic consequences or downfall for themselves.
As has been said for a long time, experience is the greatest teacher.
Being always illegal and criminal is the greater point, imo. Using the qualifiers of unnecessary, CP and damaging might possibly be more persuasive with some people of unfortunately poor moral minds, ethics, et cetera, but these three terms don't constitute grounds for indictments and prosecutions, whereas illegal and criminal definitely do.
The three mild(er) terms are grounds for voters to vote the guilty politicians out of office, but not for indictments and prosecutions, and those are [needed]. Indictments and prosecutions!
Telling this to the unpersuaded people might be too strong for wording. They'd likely prefer to hear and read the three mild terms of counterproductive, unnecessary and damaging. If that's true, however, then I hope that there are plenty of [babysitters] available among activists.
I prefer the much stronger, accurate and justified terms of criminal, illegal, indicment(s), and prosecution(s).
"US apologies for killing troops fail to halt Pakistan blockade"
by Bill Van Auken, WSWS.org, Oct. 8th, 2010
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m70542
That has the direct link for the original copy of the article.
Not bad for a day's work, and they're far more humane than the West is. I'm sorry for the driver, yes; but not the trucks. One driver killed for over 70 trucks is very careful and humane resistance, compared to what the West does.
The latter would be an "interesting" twist, but the BBC is not a good source on topics of wars of aggression by the West; imperialist wars. Maybe its above-cited report gives the real or sole real explanation, or maybe both reasons are true, or perhaps it is only the Taliban in Pakistan.
Either way, I wouldn't do as Kevin Zeese says when he says that it's "Pakistanis" who are committing these attacks. Pakistanis are not all Pakistani Taliban, not all Pakistanis are aligned with Pakistani Taliban. I'd say "Pakistani Taliban", instead of "Pakistanis". Saying the latter points the finger at basically all Pakistanis. Some accuracy is justified or called for.
There's plenty about all of that that people will surely want to read in full and should read in full.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5395.shtml
The linked article makes the case of why the Afghanistan War is illegal.
Plenty, maybe not many, but nevertheless enough people clearly have correctly argued that the war on Afghanistan is illegal. Marjorie Cohn and other law experts have explained that the war is illegal, which it most definitely is. But I additionally say that it's criminal; because of treating the two terms somewhat differently.
Some things that are officially, according to human-established laws, illegal really aren't criminal, and there are things human-established laws don't treat as criminal that are criminal. That is, I treat "illegality" as "officialdom", what humans have officially made law, and criminality differently. Criminality, for me, is based on sane, sound ethics. The two are not the same. But when we have ethically sound laws, then they're of course welcome. And when neither side recognizes real crimes as crimes, then we have waking up to do.
The war on Afghanistan has always been both illegal and criminal. This time, as in some or many other cases, the two agree; unless we are imperialist elites, supporters, or allies. (And Washington elites, f.e., don't have to be located in Wa. They just have to be in control of the beast.)
Illegal? Yes. Criminal? Definitely.
Indiction(s) and prosecution(s) are needed, but with all of the war-criminal elites of the West that we have, we'd be wasting our time believing that these indictions and prosecutions will ever happen. We can try to get that all we want; it ain't likely to ever happen. It's not humanly possible, really. We can and should demand it, but we should not fantastically believe that we could really achieve this. The best that can possibly happen is for voters to run these rats out of politics, and that's another dream, but it might be more feasible; maybe.
Apocalypse Now! Sure, now, yesterday, yesteryear, yesterdecade(s), and yestertomorrow(s). Imperialism rules. As long as that creature from hell exists, we'll have apolapyses. Can humanity stop it? Well, humanity clearly never did before and this creature from hell has grown more powerful. Even if more humans are aware of the imperialist beasts today than people realized in the past, these damn beasts have become more powerful; and law enforcement works for them and not us.
We're [skunked]; without meaning to insult skunks, some of which I'd like to take for a little visit to DC.
Let's all "flip the birdie" to Washington and its allies, as well as supporters, and we might get momentary satisfaction from doing this, which I just did; but it's only momentary. Nightmare immediately returns and seems rather [permanent]. And it evidently and unfortunately is; permanent.
Take skunks to DC and let'em loose there. Maybe it'll provide humanity with a short break; better short, rather than none at all, I guess.
Does anyone have any better ideas?
Skunks sound good to me.
Re. the false U.S. alert about terrorist strikes in Europe, WSWS.org has some specific articles and there are one or more additional ones at Uruknet.
This was mentioned in the WSWS article I excerpted from in my post above this one; the end of that piece.
"Barack Obama accused of exaggerating terror threat for political gain"
by Simon Tisdall and Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, UK, Oct. 7th, 2010
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m70533
It's like the Bush Jr-Cheney administration did when they pressured former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to issue what he has declared to have then known to be and to therefore know to be false terror alerts. It was always done to try to frighten Americans or the western (or world) public into supporting the war presidency of the U.S., and their allies in the phony "War on Terrorism".
This "AfPak" war has definitely become worse with the Obama, et alia, administration years. Use an appointed Repub. Administration to start criminal wars and then replace them with a selected Dem. Administration to worsen matters? Doesn't sound good to me, at all.
"Pakistani, European officials charge US manufactured terror scare"
by Robert Stevens, Oct. 9th, 2010
www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/terr-o09.shtml
The following article is earlier, but provides additional information.
"European politicians deny US claims of terror threat"
by Stefan Steinberg, Oct. 7th, 2010
www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/euro-o07.shtml
"Reding and de Maiziere", btw, are EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and "German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere (Christian Democratic Union)".
The article by Stefan Steinberg of Oct. 7th at WSWS that I excerpted from in my last post, above, says Thomas de Maiziere evidently finds it suspect or questionable that so-called identity documents or documents that could prove identity(ies) were found rather immediately after a strike in an [in]accessible area of Pakistan. And he's right to find this suspect.
But it also reminds me of one part of the whole story of the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush Jr-Cheney government claimed that the passport of one of the alleged hijackers of one of the two planes that struck the WTC Towers in NYC and who would've been killed, while a lot of the contents of the two planes would've likely gone up in flames, or at least become very difficult to find because of being buried amongst a lot of debris, magically was discovered at "Ground Zero" shortly after the towers were destroyed; on the same day, if I recall correctly, which I think is accurate. In all of the debris that would've been there, this magical-answer passport was purportedly found.
Actually, it seems that the the so-called passport might've been found only on 9/12. But the area was still covered with a lot of debris and dust from pulverised concrete from the Towers. Or maybe the alleged passport was found on 9/11, but only reported on 9/12. Either way, however, this was conveniently fast for the war elites.
"Demolition Access to the WTC Towers:
Part Four - Cleanup"
by KEVIN RYAN, Feb. 11th, 2010
911review.com/articles/ryan/demolition_access_p4.html
People definitely should read about Bernard Kerik by searching using his last name from the start of the above Part Four article, or from searching all of 911review.com. He's a very corrupt character.
And re. the black boxes, people should search 911review.com for more about this, because while the government has maintained the claim that these boxes were not found, this would not be true according to witnesses and some aviation experts.
"Troubling Questions in Troubling Times
A critical look at the history of attacks
on the World Trade Center"
by James S. Adam, Oct. 5th, 2001
911review.com/articles/adam/troubling_questions.html
In the following article, readers can learn a little about suspect passports of alleged 9/11 hijackers, but not the passport I referred to, above. This is about passports and other identifying evidence the U.S. elite claimed the or some of the hijackers left behind; as if they did this so that U.S. authorities could conveniently and quickly name the hijackers. No serious terrorists would do this, but Wa., DC, pretended otherwise. Real terrorist [groups] claim responsibility for their actions, but they don't plan to leave documents, religious scripture, et cetera, behind at locations of attacks. But according to Washington, the hijacker leaders deliberately would have left identity papers, religious scripture, et cetera behind; and these clearly weren't devout Muslims, since they liked strip clubs, casinos, et cetera.
Washington comes up with these kinds of fantasies though. I'm not sure that Hollywood would be ready to go with this, for it's rather difficult to pretend that devout Muslisms frequent strip clubs, and so on.
"There's Something About Omar
Part 1 of Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11"
last modified Dec. 13th, 2003
911review.com/911review/markup/TruthLiesLegend.shtml
(And of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, who the White House, et alia, claimed to be devout Muslims, were not. The White House Admin. claimed these guys were devout Muslims, but they or leaders of them frequented strip clubs, boozed up, went to casinos and gambled, et cetera.)
Thomas de Maiziere is definitely right to find it suspect that identity documents were immediately or very promptly found in a [non]-accessible location. I believe that it definitely is "just" more deceitful fabrication by the elites of the U.S.; more of their sick fiction(s).
Illegal and criminal war! Indictions and prosecutions are what're needed. Calling all of this criminality only unnecessary, counterproductive and damaging is like a sort of whitewashing; diminishing the real criminality involved. But maybe a lot of Americans and Europeans aren't yet ready to support indicting and prosecuting these war-criminal leaders; prefering the three milder and much less firm terms that apply to all wars, instead.
We need indictments and prosecutions of the criminals and must demand this, even if we can be basically sure that we can't really expect to be able to achieve this. I don't believe that we can or will ever be able to achieve this, but do believe that denouncing that the war is illegal and criminal, and demanding the indicments and prosecutions, is a necessary part of opposing this imperialistic criminality. Denounce it for what it really is!
We must at least clearly and publicly declare our understanding that this imperialism is all illegal and criminal, and that we should therefore have indictments and prosecutions. This would be short only one thing; demanding that the indictments be made and prosecutions held. We'd at least be stating that we realize that (the impossible) indictions and prosecutions are definitely called for.
If we don't do that, while talking or writing about the war being counterproductive, unnecessary and damaging, then it's put-to-sleep-talk; it's whitewashing, or very close to it.
Who are we trying to persuade here, and how?
This might seem like strong criticism and I am sorry if it's offensive, but wars of aggression require strong, firm rebuttal; not softness (or worse).
Whether the other party is willing to accept that a spade is a spade, if it's a spade, then make sure to say to say that it is a spade. If we don't do that, then we can appear to be complicit whitewashers, or very ignorant; and neither of those are good when claiming to honestly inform or lead other people.
The war [is] and has always been illegal, criminal, and imperialist; plain and simple. Like that or not; it's [reality]. Counterproductive, unnecessary and damaging are [consequences] of this always illegal and criminal war. Prosecute the war criminals. We aren't going to live to see that day, but it's to be demanded.
People who still don't [see] the illegality and criminality of this war are definitely not leaders; except of very ignorant people.