[Peace-discuss] Re: Obama's AfPak war

[John W.]

 "You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban
have time."

That statement right there is a succinct summary of the entirety of modern
world history, and of the futility of empire.

I read a book a while back about oil in Africa.  As we all know, America
wants it, but so does China.

But here's the difference, according to the book I read:  America says, "You
have oil that we need.  If you don't sell it to us on terms that we deem
favorable, we're gonna send in our armies and kick your ass and take it."
We don't say it QUITE so directly, but it's pretty close.

China, on the other hand, says, "You have oil that we need.  We'd like to
buy it from you at a fair market price.  And to help sweeten the pot, what
type of infrastructure do you need?  We have a million engineers, laborers,
plenty of heavy equipment.  We'll build you roads, dams, whatever you need
for your country."

Now if you were running an African country, who would YOU want to sell your
oil to?

And why doesn't America ever think to try honey rather than vinegar, the
carrot rather than the stick?  Is it really so impossible for us to change
our paradigm?  Not only would it make us more friends and fewer terrorist
enemies in the world, but wouldn't it even end up COSTING us FAR less in the
long run?

John Wason


On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 10:47 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:

[From Nir Rosen, "How We Lost the War We Won: A Journey Into
> Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan," Rolling Stone, Issue 1064 (October 30,
> 2008). --CGE]
>
> ...it is foolhardy to believe that the Americans can prevail where the
> Russians failed. At the height of the occupation, the Soviets had 120,000 of
> their own troops in Afghanistan, buttressed by roughly 300,000 Afghan
> troops. The Americans and their allies, by contrast, have 65,000 troops on
> the ground, backed up by only 137,000 Afghan security forces — and they face
> a Taliban who enjoy the support of a well-funded and highly organized
> network of Islamic extremists. "The end for the Americans will be just like
> for the Russians," says a former commander who served in the Taliban
> government. "The Americans will never succeed in containing the conflict.
> There will be more bleeding. It's coming to the same situation as it did for
> the communist forces, who found themselves confined to the provincial
> capitals."
>
> Simply put, it is too late for Bush's "quiet surge" — or even for Barack
> Obama's plan for a more robust reinforcement — to work in Afghanistan. More
> soldiers on the ground will only lead to more contact with the enemy, and
> more air support for troops will only lead to more civilian casualties that
> will alienate even more Afghans. Sooner or later, the American government
> will be forced to the negotiating table, just as the Soviets were before
> them.
>
> "The rise of the Taliban insurgency is not likely to be reversed," says
> Abdulkader Sinno, a Middle East scholar and the author of Organizations at
> War in Afghanistan and Beyond. "It will only get stronger. Many local
> leaders who are sitting on the fence right now — or are even nominally
> allied with the government — are likely to shift their support to the
> Taliban in the coming years. What's more, the direct U.S. military
> involvement in Afghanistan is now likely to spill over into Pakistan. It may
> be tempting to attack the safe havens of the Taliban and Al Qaeda across the
> border, but that will only produce a worst-case scenario for the United
> States. Attacks by the U.S. would attract the support of hundreds of
> millions of Muslims in South Asia. It would also break up Pakistan, leading
> to a civil war, the collapse of its military and the possible unleashing of
> its nuclear arsenal."
>
> In the same speech in which he promised a surge, Bush vowed that he would
> never allow the Taliban to return to power in Afghanistan. But they have
> already returned, and only negotiation with them can bring any hope of
> stability. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan "are all theaters in the same
> overall struggle," the president declared, linking his administration's
> three greatest foreign-policy disasters in one broad vision. In the end,
> Bush said, we must have "faith in the power of freedom."
>
> But the Taliban have their own faith, and so far, they are winning. On my
> last day in Kabul, a Western aid official reminds me of the words of a
> high-ranking Taliban leader, who recently explained why the United States
> will never prevail in Afghanistan.
>
> "You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban
> have time."
>
>
> http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23612315/how_we_lost_the_war_we_won
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Obama's AfPak war
> Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:02:03 -0500
>
> [On yesterday's Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman interviewed Nir Rosen, whom
> Noam
> Chomsky calls "one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in
> the
> region." Rosen says that Obama "needs to prove, as a Democrat, that he too
> can
> kill brown people." --CGE]
>
> ...
>
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