Is
staying in Afghanistan OK with you as long as we call it leaving?
President
Obama has signed an agreement with President Karzai
to keep a major U.S.
military presence in Afghanistan
(currently about three times the size Obama began with) through the end
of 2014, and to allow a significant unspecified presence beyond that date,
with no end date stipulated. Obama stresses that no permanent U.S. bases will be involved, but his agreement
requires Afghanistan
to let U.S. troops use “Afghan” bases.
Obama
forgot to provide any reason not to withdraw from Afghanistan
now, given majority U.S.
desire to end the war. Like Newt Gingrich promising to quit campaigning
before actually doing so, Obama is promising to leave Afghanistan, but not yet - except that he isn’t
promising to ever leave at all. The agreement is open-ended.
Obama
spoke on Tuesday of a transition to Afghan control, but we’ve heard that
talk for a decade. That’s not some new bright idea that requires two-and-a-half
more years to develop.
Obama
talked of fighting al Qaeda, but the U.S.
has not been fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan,
and has admitted for years that there is virtually no al Qaeda presence
there. That’s not the two-year project, and it’s not the reason to remain
indefinitely after 2014.
The
agreement requires that all “entities” involved in a
peace process renounce violence, but the Taliban will no more do
that while under foreign occupation than the United
States will do so while occupying. This is not a
serious plan to leave. Nor is it a plan based on Afghan sovereignty, numerous
claims to the contrary notwithstanding. This is a treaty for more years
of war, on the model of the Bush-Maliki treaty
for Iraq,
but with the difference that theirs included an end date.
The
agreement says it enters into force when “the Parties notify one another,
through diplomatic channels, of the completion of their respective internal
legal requirements.” The U.S. Constitution requires ratification by the
Senate of all treaties. Congress could insist on its right to approve
or reject this, just as the Afghan Parliament will be permitted to do.
Or Congress could require withdrawal now, as does bill HR 780, which has
70 cosponsors.
The
written agreement doesn’t mention it, but Obama said on Tuesday that he
would withdraw 23,000 troops by the end of the summer, after which reductions
would continue “at a steady pace.” Assuming 90,000 U.S.
troops now in Afghanistan,
a steady pace would get them all home by about a year from now, not two-and-a-half
years from now. But Obama says that it will be the end of 2014, not when
the last troop leaves, but when a significant number of troops remain,
as Afghans become “fully responsible for the security of their country”
- except for whatever it is that the U.S. troops will do.
Obama
is full of praise for U.S.
troops, as if they’ve benefitted Afghanistan.
And he’s full of concern for the suffering of U.S.
troops and U.S.
citizens. When he mentions Afghans, at best he equates their suffering
under U.S. bombs, drones, night raids, and prison cells, to the suffering
of Americans scared by their television sets and forced to over-eat to
relieve their stress. “Neither Americans nor the Afghan people asked for
this war,” Obama said, forgetting that one of those two countries had
invaded the other one and occupied it for over a decade. “The reason America is safe is because of you,” Obama told
U.S. troops, forgetting that
the war has made our nation more hated around the world.
This
agreement is inexcusable. It’s also vague and preliminary. A more detailed
treaty will be worked out on May 20th when NATO meets in Chicago.
We need to be there en masse in protest.
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, David Swanson, is co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org
coalition and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America. He is the author of: Daybreak:
Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union (Seven Stories Press) and War
Is A Lie
. His website is www.davidswanson.org.
Click here
to contact Mr. Swanson.
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