[Peace-discuss] Gareth Porter interview

Thu Jul 3 10:28:50 CDT 2008

It seems to me that that's exactly what they were when, in the mid-1990s, they 
brought a harsh order to Afghanistan.  "The Taliban initially had enormous 
goodwill from Afghans weary of the corruption, brutality and incessant fighting 
of Mujahideen warlords" -- who had been constituted fifteen years before by 
President Carter's CIA, in its most expensive program to date, in order to "give 
the USSR its own Vietnam," as Carter National Security Advisor Brzezinski said.

After the US invasion in 2001 and their overthrow, the Taliban reconstituted 
themselves as the leaders of the national resistance against the foreign 
invaders, the warlords, and other comprador elements, like the Karzai 
government.  On that basis they seemed to have expanded their appeal even beyond 
their Pashtun base (the Pashtuns being probably more than 40% of the population) 
to become an Afghan liberation movement.

In destroying secular nationalist movements in the Middle East and financing 
religious ones (like Hamas) -- Carter's CIA recruited blood-thirsty religious 
fanatics to oppose "godless Communism" -- the US followed a wide-ranging but 
single-minded policy that in the 1950s saw Catholics recruited in Vietnam to 
oppose the Viet Minh and on the campus of Notre Dame University to join the CIA 
(cf. Agee, Inside the Company).  But with the Taliban they reaped the whirlwind.

The British journalist Jason Burke, who wrote what is probably the best book on 
Al-Qaeda, has just published "On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict 
in the Islamic World," on "Islamic militancy, its root causes its evolution and 
likely future."  It may be the best account currently available in English.  --CGE

Sarah Tedrow-Azizi wrote:
> I would hardly put the Taliban in the same catagory as those "engaged
> in wars of local defense and national liberation."
> 
> 
> On 7/2/08, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> Thanks for the reference, Stuart.
>>
>> Of course the U.S. needs a fantasy Third Reich in the Middle East as an
>> excuse for its military descent on the region (and also to justify its cost
>> to the US public), because it can't admit the real nature of the enemy whom
>> it's ranged against: people in the Middle East who want the US to get out of
>> their country and stop taking their resources.
>>
>> We call them terrorists, insurgents, militants, Al-Qaeda, Taliban and the
>> like, but they're engaged in wars of local defense and national liberation
>> (cf. anti-imperial struggles from the 18th century up to anti-colonial
>> struggles in the 20th). The US encouraged religious identification in the
>> region a generation ago to undercut secular nationalism (Nasser, Arafat) and
>> succeeded too well: now religious identification is an organizing principle
>> for resistance to US plans.
>>
>> Given the bed-rock US policy -- control of Mideast energy -- the only
>> alternative to permanent US war is the neocon fantasy of a region of
>> obedient client states -- which admittedly Iran and Egypt have recently
>> been, after attempts at national liberation (Iran by coup in the Eisenhower
>> administration, Egypt by purchase in the Carter administration).
>>
>> What the US can't stand in current conditions is for peace to break out.
>> --CGE
>>
>>
>>
>> Stuart Levy wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 06:39:50PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>
>>>> You wouldn't like to summarize his argument, would you, Mort?  In my
>> dotage I find it hard to listen to these things, and it seems there's no
>> transcript available...
>>> The page Mort pointed to does have a link to Gareth Porter's
>>> pretty readable article though, as well as the 45-minute interview.
>>> Note especially the last paragraph I'm quoting here: that the analysts
>>> he's talking about are pressing for a (US) attack on Iran -- *not* because
>>> Iran is strong, dangerous, irrational, and liable to marshal its own and
>>> other forces to retaliate if attacked -- but because, they say, Iran
>>> is relatively weak, knows that it's weak, would do little in response,
>>> and so attacking it wouldn't be such a risky venture.
>>>
>>> So the public story is that Iran is the new powerful Third Reich,
>>> liable to destabilize the world, while their private analysis calls
>>> for attacking Iran *because* it's vulnerable now.  "A nuclear-armed Iran
>>> could dangerously alter the strategic balance in the region," write the
>> WINEP
>>> authors, "handcuffing Israel's room to maneuver on the Palestinian
>>> and Lebanese fronts…."
>>>
>>>
>>>    http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13072
>>>
>>>    Anti-Iran Arguments Belie Fearmongering
>>>    New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favor of U.S.
>> strikes
>>>    against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to
>> the U.S.
>>>    and Israel and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such
>> weapons at
>>>    all.
>>>
>>>    The new arguments contradict Israel's official argument that it faces
>> an
>>>    "existential threat" from an Islamic extremist Iranian regime
>> determined to get
>>>    nuclear weapons. They suggest that Israel, which already has as many as
>> 200
>>>    nuclear weapons, views Iran from the position of the dominant power in
>> the
>>>    region rather than as the weaker state in the relationship.
>>>
>>>    The existence of a sharp imbalance of power in favor of Israel and the
>> United
>>>    States is the main premise of a recent analysis by Patrick Clawson and
>> Michael
>>>    Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
>> suggesting
>>>    that a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is feasible. Chuck
>> Freilich, a
>>>    senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center on Science and
>>>    International Affairs, has also urged war against Iran on such a power
>>>    imbalance.
>>>
>>>    All three have close ties to the Israeli government. WINEP has long
>> promoted
>>>    policies favored by Israel, and its founding director, Martin Indyk,
>> was
>>>    previously research director of the leading pro-Israel lobby, the
>> American
>>>    Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Freilich is a former Israeli
>> deputy
>>>    national security adviser.
>>>
>>>    These analysts, all of whom are pushing for a U.S., rather than an
>> Israeli
>>>    attack, argue that Iran's power to retaliate for a U.S. attack on its
>> nuclear
>>>    facilities is quite limited. Equally significant, they also emphasize
>> that Iran
>>>    is a rational actor that would have to count the high costs of
>> retaliation.
>>>    That conclusion stands in sharp contrast to the official Israeli line
>> that Iran
>>>    cannot be deterred because of its allegedly apocalyptic Islamic
>> viewpoint on
>>>    war with Israel.
>>>
>>>    [... and lots more, but much less than 45 minutes worth...]
>>>
>>>> Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> A very illuminating interview with Gareth Porter about the Iran
>> situation, the Israeli lobby, and related topics.
>>>>>  (You'll have to click the appropriate link.)
>>>>> http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/07/01/gareth-porter-30/
>>>>>
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