Sometimes
I feel like I am reliving the era of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The era of “guns and butter,” as they called it. At the same time
that Johnson was launching his “War on Poverty” he was escalating
the US war against the people of Vietnam and Laos, as well as carrying
out the criminal invasion of the Dominican Republic (1965). Not
only did these interventions (and others!) isolate the USA and set
back the efforts of these various countries at self-determination,
but they wrecked the US economy, siphoning off badly needed resources.
So,
here we are today with the Obama administration carrying out a cautious
and VERY partial withdrawal from Iraq (50,000 US troops will remain),
while at the same time escalating the US troop presence in Afghanistan.
Compounding this situation are US military attacks within
Pakistan, an activity that is the equivalent of pouring kerosene
on an open fire.
And
just like President Johnson, President Obama has an ambitious domestic
agenda.
It
has been difficult for many liberals and progressives to outright
oppose the Afghanistan war. This was true when Bush first invaded
in 2001, and it remains true today. Following the 11 September 2001
terrorist attacks, many people in the USA, including but not limited
to the Bush administration, were looking for revenge. In fact, there
were those who said quite explicitly that revenge should take precedence
over justice. And so we got it…revenge that is.
The
Afghanistan war was never a “good war.” Yes, Al Qaeda had bases
in Afghanistan. So, let’s think about another situation and how
it was handled. The Nicaraguan Contras, the US-backed terrorists
who waged a war against the Sandinista government in the 1980s,
were based in Honduras. The Honduran government did not control
those bases, even if they turned a blind-eye to them. And, to emphasize
the point, the Contras were supplied, resupplied, and further supplied
by the US government. In fact, the USA mined Nicaraguan harbors,
a clear act of war by one government against another.
So,
should the Sandinistas have attacked Honduras, overthrown the Honduran
government, and perhaps have attacked Miami for good measure? How
do you think that much of the world would have responded? In fact,
the Sandinistas went to the World Court and brought charges against
the USA. The Nicaraguans prevailed in the Court, to the surprise
of everyone, yet it did not matter because the USA ignored the judgment
of the Court.
The
Taliban government of Afghanistan, as despicable as they were, did
not carry out the assault on 11 September 2001. It was easier, however,
for Bush to carry out a conventional assault against the people
that only a few short months prior they had been treating as potential
business partners. In carrying out that invasion the US walked into
a quagmire that anyone who studied Central Asia could have (and
many had) predicted. In fact, the Soviet Union had a horrific experience
in Afghanistan a dozen years earlier.
So,
now we are being told that the USA must continue its “good war”
in Afghanistan in order to crush the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The problem
is that when something starts off wrong, it rarely gets much better.
In fact, not only has the military situation been worsening due
to a combination of bungling, corruption and cultural blindness
by the invaders, but the regional political situation has been deteriorating.
A popular movement in Pakistan brought an end
to the military regime of President Musharaff. At the same time,
right-wing Islamists began their own military actions against the
Pakistan government, the US, Pakistani Shiites, and, when they had
some free time, the Indian government. It should be noted that these
are not the same Taliban as are operating in Afghanistan, but these
distinctions never seem to matter to the USA. Each time the USA
carries out a drone attack on alleged terrorist positions in Pakistan,
they strengthen the arguments and support of the right-wing Islamists.
Further
US involvement in Afghanistan brings no assurance of victory. More
importantly, the conflict must be resolved politically. The puppet
regime in Kabul has so alienated the population that they have little
control outside of the city itself. The population which, in some
cases welcomed the US invasion has turned against the US and their
NATO and warlord allies even if they have no love for the Taliban.
There is nothing that should lead anyone to believe that this will
change with the introduction of even more US forces, even if the
USA spreads money around the way that they did in Iraq in order
to buy off opposition.
It
is not just that furthering the Afghanistan aggression takes badly
needed funds away from domestic projects in the USA. That should
be a given. More importantly, the Afghanistan situation is integrally
linked to the internal situation in Pakistan as well as the Pakistani
conflict with India (over the Kashmir). There is little that the
Obama administration is currently doing that seems to recognize
the extent of the potential spillover affect from further military
escalation. This in a region where there are two nuclear powers
within minutes of turning each other into ashes, and seem to be
driven toward this end.
BlackCommentator.com
Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the
Institute for Policy Studies,
the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path
toward Social Justice (University
of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor
in the USA. Click here
to contact Mr. Fletcher. |