First 13 Years in Afghanistan Big Success, Next 10 Promise Joy and Prosperity

Here comes another October 7th, time once again for celebrating the International Day of Wars-Start-Easy-But-They’re-a-Bitch-to-End. That is, if we can spare a few moments away from celebrating the new wars we’re starting.

On this date 13 years ago, the United States attacked Afghanistan, which the U.S. President saw primarily as a step toward attacking Iraq, although — in fairness — God had told him to attack both countries. I asked God about that recently and he said, “You want to see regrets. Oh my God, you should talk to the Nobel Committee about that peace laureate.” I didn’t have to ask which one, and I didn’t ask who his God was, fearing an endless discussion loop.

Way back yonder in 2001 before presidents openly spied on everything, launched wars without a pretense of legality, imprisoned without charge, assassinated at will, and kept enough secrets to have outraged Richard Nixon, the general public wasn’t given quite all the information by its beloved televisions. We weren’t told the Taliban was willing to turn bin Laden over to a neutral nation to stand trial. We weren’t told the Taliban was a reluctant tolerator of al Qaeda, and a completely distinct group. We weren’t told the 911 attacks had also been planned in Germany and Maryland and various other places not marked for bombing. We weren’t told that most of the people who would die in Afghanistan, many more than died on 911, not only didn’t support 911 but never heard of it. We weren’t told our government would kill large numbers of civilians, imprison people without trial, hang people by their feet and whip them until they were dead.

We weren’t told how this illegal war would advance the acceptability of illegal wars or how it would make the United States hated in much of the world. We weren’t given the background of how the U.S. interfered in Afghanistan and provoked a Soviet invasion and armed resistance to the Soviets and left the people to the tender mercies of that armed resistance once the Soviets left. We weren’t told that Tony Blair wanted Afghanistan first before he’d get the UK to help destroy Iraq. We certainly weren’t told that bin Laden had been an ally of the U.S. government, that the 911 hijackers were mostly Saudi, or that there might be anything at all amiss with the government of Saudi Arabia. And nobody mentioned the trillions of dollars we’d waste or the civil liberties we’d have to lose at home or the severe damage that would be inflicted on the natural environment. Even birds don’t go to Afghanistan anymore.

The Taliban was very swiftly destroyed in 2001 through a combination of overwhelming killing power and desertion. The U.S. then began hunting for anyone who had once been a member of the Taliban. But these included many of the people now leading the support of the U.S. regime — and many such allied leaders were killed and captured despite not having been Taliban as well, through sheer stupidity and corruption. Dangling $5,000 rewards in front of poor people produced false-accusations that landed their rivals in Bagram or Guantanamo, and the removal of these often key figures devastated communities, and turned communities against the United States that had previously been inclined to support it. Add to this the vicious and insulting abuse of whole families, including women and children captured and harassed by U.S. troops, and the revival of the Taliban under the U.S. occupation begins to become clear. The lie we’ve been told to explain it is that the U.S. became distracted by Iraq, but the Taliban revived precisely where U.S. troops were imposing a rule of violence and not where other internationals were negotiating compromises using, you know, words.

This has been a bumbling oblivious and uncomprehending foreign occupation (as they always are) torturing and murdering a lot of its own strongest allies, shipping some of them off to Gitmo — even shipping to Gitmo young boys whose only offense had been being the sexual assault victims of U.S. allies

When Barack Obama became president, there were 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He escalated to over 100,000 troops, plus contractors, and has been celebrated for ending the war ever since. Five years have been spent discussing the “drawdown.” The U.S. public has been telling pollsters we want all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan “as soon as possible” for years and years. Endless speeches have bragged about ending wars that Obama supposedly “inherited.” And yet, there are now 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, more than when Obama became president. Several NATO allies have wisely departed, but that’s the extent of the “drawdown.” Measured death and destruction or financial cost, Afghanistan is much more President Obama’s war than President Bush’s.

Now, Obama has managed to get a new Afghan president to agree to U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan with immunity from any criminal prosecution, until “2024 and beyond.” Obama claims he’ll reduce troop levels to 9,800 this year, 6,000 next year, and 1,000 the following year — at which point he’ll still be guarding Afghanistan’s new president better than he guards the White House.

This has been Obama’s plan from Day 1. He’s never actually said he would ever end the war; he’s just been given endless credit for doing so. But there’s a bit of rightwing nonsense in the air these days that, combined with the sheer number of U.S. wars, distracts people from the outrageousness of keeping the war on Afghanistan going for another decade “and beyond.” The bit of nonsense is the idea that Iraq has gone to hell because U.S. troops left. In fact, Iraq was a worse hell when U.S. troops were there, and it was the hard work of the U.S. troops and their allies over several years that put Iraq on the path to the hell it now is. Even Obama, who tried desperately to get criminal immunity for U.S. troops in order to leave them in Iraq three years ago, admits that having left them there would have done no good. But surely this bit of counterfactual lunacy — the idea that the troops leaving broke Iraq — helps to stifle our protests and outrage at the latest news from Vietghanistan.

Obama used to be a proud member of the Let’s Stop Killing Iraqis and Kill More Afghans Club. Now he’s back in Iraq plus Syria killing so many civilians that he’s announced that rules for minimizing civilian deaths don’t apply. I’ve got a scheme to help him bamboozle his antiwar supporters back into adoring him. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s an unexpected reversal. And at least half the country already thinks he’s done it anyway: Get the U.S. Military Out of Afghanistan. Now. Entirely. No Strings Attached.