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

Fri Oct 17 19:28:40 CDT 2008

An important observation. La cina e vicina. --CGE

John W. wrote:
> "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 
> <mailto: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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